GARDENING 
WITH  BRAINS 


HENRY  T  FINCK 


UfftARY 

SAN  DIEGO 


c 


GARDENING 
WITH  BRAINS 

by 
Henry  T.  Finck 


From  left  to  right—Luther  Burbank 
John  Burroughs,  Edith  Simonds, 
and  Henry  T.  Finck. 


GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS 
FIFTY  YEARS'  EXPERIENCES  OF 
A  HORTICULTURAL  EPICURE 


BY 
HENRY   T.    FINCK 

Author  of 
"FOOD  AND  FLAVOR" 


PUBLISHERS 

HARPER    AND    BROTHERS 
MCMXXII 


GARDENING   WITH   BRAINS 

COPYRIGHT,  1922,  BY  HARPER 
AND  BROTHERS  •  PRINTED  IN 
THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 

A-X 


DEDICATED  TO 

EDWIN  F.  GAY 

AND 

SIMEON    STRUNSKY 


CONTENTS    « 

PREFACE:     BRAINS    AND    THE    GARDEN 

MANIA xv 

CHAPTER   I:    A  MOUNTAIN   GARDEN  IN 

MAINE 3 

What  Seeds  to  Buy 6 

CHAPTER  II:  RAPID  TRANSIT  TO  THE 

TABLE 9 

How  Corn  Loses  Its  Sweetness       ....  11 

Tomatoes  and  Potatoes 13 

CHAPTER    III:     WHAT   VEGETABLES    WE 
SHOULD     GROW     OURSELVES,     AND 

WHY 15 

Baby  Cabbages  and  Senator  Peas       ...  17 

Better  Raw  Than  Cooked 18 

The  Spinach  Problem  Solved  at  Last      .     .  21 

Increasing  the  Yield 24 

Weeds  and  Hoes 25 

Fragrant  Luscious  Melons 26 

CHAPTER    IV:      FAVORITE    GARDEN 

FLOWERS 30 

Nasturtiums  No  Longer  "Yellow  Dogs"      .  31 

Let  Fragrance  Decide 36 

Why  Bulbs  and  Perennials? 38 

Peonies  and  Perennial  Phlox 41 

Lilies,  Irises,  and  Gladioli 45 

The  Most  Alluring  of  the  Annuals      ...  49 


viii                        CONTENTS  1? 

Page 

CHAPTER  V:  HOW  TO  START  A  GARDEN   .  55 

CHAPTER  VI:  BRAINS,  BRAINS,  AND  MORE 

BRAINS        63 

Technic  of  Gardening 64 

Be  a  Gambler 66 

Humus,  Leaf  Mold,  and  Fertilizers     ...  67 

Green  Manuring 70 

Getting  Strength  from  Greens   .....  72 

CHAPTER  VII:    WHEN  VEGETABLES  GET 

PNEUMONIA        74 

Jack  Frost  Is  Innocent 75 

Protecting  Fog 76 

The  Devilish  Witch  Grass 77 

CHAPTER     VIII:      MALE     versus     FEMALE 

ASPARAGUS  PLANTS 80 

Wasting  Energy  on  Berries 82 

Makes  Us  Horribly  Selfish 85 

CHAPTER  IX:  ON  THE  WARPATH  IN  THE 

GARDEN 90 

Rose  Bugs  and  Grape  Blossoms     ....  91 

Hosts  of  Garden  Huns 93 

Grasshoppers,    Woodchucks,    Crows,    and 

Cats 94 

CHAPTER   X:    LADYBIRDS,   TOADS,   AND 

CHICKENS 98 

Toads,  Yes— Snakes,  No       99 

Chickens  and  the  Garden 101 

A  Prohibition  Rooster  104 


•»                           CONTENTS  ix 

Page 

CHAPTER   XI:    MORALS   OF   ELM   TREES 

AND   CUTWORMS       106 

Tragedies  in  the  Garden 108 

Malicious  Worms 109 

Study  the  Anatomy  of  Roots 112 

CHAPTER  XII:   DAILY  MIRACLES  IN  THE 

GARDEN 115 

The  Intelligence  of  Plants 116 

How  Plants  Utilize  Dew 119 

The  Most  Marvelous  Thing  in  the  World    .  120 

CHAPTER  XIII:  HOW  TO  BE  HAPPY,  RAIN 

OR  SHINE 124 

The  Art  of  Transplanting 125 

Effective  Crop  Insurance 127 

Make  Intensive  Gardening  Compulsory!     .  129 

CHAPTER  XIV:   A  NEW  TIME-TABLE  FOR 

VEGETABLES 132 

Stop  the  Loafing 134 

Unstringing  the  Beans 135 

Three  Weeks'  Potatoes 137 

CHAPTER  XV:  AN  OPIUM  DREAM  OF  NEW 

POPPIES 140 

Oriental,  Darwin,  and  Silver  Lining    .     .     .  141 

Burbank's  Art  Shirleys 145 

How  to  Raise  Fairy  Poppies 147 


x                           CONTENTS  «' 

Page 

CHAPTER  XVI:    TWO  THOUSAND  ACRES 

OF  SWEET  PEAS 150 

A  Thousand  New  Varieties 152 

The  Australian  Yarrawa 154 

Cultural  Directions 156 

CHAPTER  XVII:    MODERN  PANSIES  AND 

THEIR  CULTURE 158 

Recent  Improvements 159 

Cats'  Faces  and  Other  Faces 160 

Human  Traits  of  Pansies 162 

CHAPTER  XVIII :  GARDENERS  WHO  PAINT 

THE  LILY 165 

Wild-flower  Gardens 166 

The  Shasta  Daisy  Was  a  Weed      ....  167 

Petunias  and  Dahlias        170 

CHAPTER  XIX:  THE  FRAGRANT  SOUL  OF 

FLOWERS 172 

Fragrance  Intoxicates,  Like  Music      .     .     .  174 

Educating  the  Sense  of  Smell 176 

Natural  Perfumes  Best 178 

A  Symphony  of  Lily  Perfumes        ....  179 

CHAPTER  XX:    ARE  PIGS  GENUINE  EPI- 
CURES?          182 

Clover-blossom  Pork 183 

A  Maligned  Philosopher 185 

If  All  Were  Epicures 187 


•*                          CONTENTS  xi 

Page 

CHAPTER  XXI:    EDUCATED  STRAWBER- 
RIES AND  BURBANK   PLUMS      ...  189 

John  Burroughs  Delighted 191 

Burbank's  New  Plum  Flavors 194 

CHAPTER  XXII:  COMMERCIAL  VALUE  OF 

BURBANK'S  NEW   CREATIONS     ...  197 

A  Bird's-eye  View 200 

Saving  Space,  Time,  and  Money    ....  202 

Bonfires  and  Moral  Character 204 

A  Gardener  of  a  New  Kind        207 

Cherries  and  Berries 212 

Money  Value  of  Improved  Flowers         .     .  217 

CHAPTER   XXIII:    JAPANESE  BURBANKS 

AND  MORNING-GLORIES 219 

CHAPTER  XXIV:    MUST  WE  RAISE  OUR 

OWN  FRUITS,   TOO? 222 

Time  May  Swing  Back 223 

Peaches  of  Other  Days 225 

The  Best  Apples 229 

CHAPTER  XXV:    DO  APPLES  KEEP  THE 

DOCTOR  AWAY? 232 

The  Fruit  Cure 233 

Another  Burbank  Triumph 234 


xii                         CONTENTS  ?? 

Page 

CHAPTER   XXVI:    WHY   NOT   GROW   PA- 
PAWS,   AMERICA'S   MOST   DELICIOUS 

FRUIT? 236 

Strange  Habits  of  a  Queer  Plant    ....  238 

Thinking  It  Over  Six  Months 239 

The  Tropical  Papaya 242 

CHAPTER    XXVII:     THE   RETIRED    RICH 

NEED  NOT  DIE 244 

Have  a  Little  Garden  in  Your  Home      .     .  245 

A  Sporting  Proposition 247 

Healthy  Plants  Radiate  Happiness     ...  248 

CHAPTER    XXVIII:     THE    JOYS    OF    CRE- 
ATIVE GARDENING 251 

Begging  for  Immediate  Improvement      .     .  253 

How  We  Improve  on  Nature 255 

The  Enemies  of  Great  Men        257 

The  Truth  About  Spineless  Cactus     .     .     .  260 

INDEX  267 


WHY? 

WHY  another  book  on  gardening?  You 
might  as  well  ask,  "Why  write  a  historic 
novel  when  there  are  so  many  histories  giving  all 
the  facts?"  There  are  plenty  of  garden  books 
giving  all  the  facts — for  reference.  But  this 
book  is  for  consecutive  reading.  The  impor- 
tant facts  are  here,  too,  but  sugar-coated  with 
wise  and  witty  remarks  and  spiced  with  anec- 
dotes and  other  things  that  suggest  the  per- 
fumed atmosphere  of  the  garden  and  appeal  to 
the  garden  maniac. 

The  world's  most  famous  gardener,  Luther 
Burbank,  wrote  to  the  author  of  this  book  that 
its  chapters  are,  in  his  opinion,  "the  best  that 
have  so  far  been  written  on  garden  subjects. 
You  get  at  the  facts  in  such  a  pleasing,  human 
way  that  they  are  irresistible.  Your  articles 
suggest  to  me  the  difference  between  living, 
moving,  growing  plant  life  and  the  dead,  dry, 
flat  specimens  which  one  sees  in  herbariums." 


PREFACE.   BRAINS  AND  THE 
GARDEN  MANIA 

"I  AM  densely  ignorant — only  just  barely 
know  dahlias  from  mignonettes,"  wrote  Henry 
James  in  May,  1898.  But  a  few  months  later 
he  declared,  "The  garden  mania  begins  to  stir 
in  my  veins." 

The  garden  mania!  When  that  gets  its  grip 
on  you,  then  good-by  to  golf  and  fishing  and 
hunting  and  most  other  summer  sports.  You 
don't  believe  it?  Just  try  and  see.  But  you 
must  use  your  brains  as  well  as  your  brawn. 

Everybody  has  heard  of  the  great  English 
artist  who,  when  asked  what  he  mixed  his  paints 
with,  replied,  "I  mix  them  with  brains,  sir." 

There  is  an  old  story  about  a  poor  widow  who 
went  to  her  pastor  and  complained  that,  al- 
though she  prayed  every  day  for  a  good  crop, 
her  garden  refused  to  yield  it.  After  inspecting 
her  soil  the  pastor  remarked :  "My  dear  madam, 
prayer  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world,  but 
you  must  also  use  the  brains  the  good  Lord  gave 
you.  Your  garden  needs  fertilizer." 

Cantaloupes,  writes  Robert  Welles  Ritchie  in 
the  Country  Gentleman,  "are  not  a  cheap 
crop — not  a  hit-and-miss  crop.  Brains,  infinite 
patience,  money,  and  then  some  more  brains  go 
into  the  rearing  of  it." 

The  same  is  true  of  most  other  crops,  useful 
or  ornamental.  If  carried  on  with  intelligence, 
gardening  is  a  succession  of  delicious  thrills. 


KVi  PREFACE  1? 

Some  drudgery  there  is,  of  course,  and  hard 
work  aplenty;  but  remember  what  "The  Eng- 
lish Plowman"  says— "It  is  not  so  tiresome  to 
plow  well,  sir;  the  mind  is  interested."  I  can- 
not imagine  anyone  being  ever  bored  in  a  garden 
which  is  well  cultivated. 

That  every  man  or  woman  who  reads  this 
book  has  brains — inherited  or  acquired — is  sure. 
There  is  one  thing,  however,  we  cannot  inherit 
— experience;  that  must  be  acquired,  which  is 
lucky  for  us  fellows  who  write  books.  The 
process  of  acquiring  experience  can  be  greatly 
accelerated  by  reading  about  the  adventures, 
successes,  and  failures  of  others. 

My  own  experiences,  as  recorded  in  this 
entirely  informal  and  chatty  volume,  cover 
more  than  fifty  years.  They  began  in  Oregon, 
when  I  was  a  boy  (James  Vick  of  Rochester, 
New  York,  was  at  that  time,  I  believe,  the  only 
mail-order  seedsman  in  the  country — and  now 
look  at  the  multitude  of  them  and  their  enor- 
mous business!),  and  will,  I  hope,  continue 
many  more  summers;  for  I  consider  life  worth 
living.  Nothing,  certainly,  makes  it  more  so 
than  the  daily  garden  thrills  for  five  months 
every  year,  and  the  healthful  exhilaration  that 
gardening  brings. 

"How  much  better  you  are  looking!"  I  said 
to  a  friend  last  May. 

"Yes,"  he  replied.  "I  began  my  gardening 
three  weeks  ago." 


<£  PREFACE  xvii 

Of  course  I  too  have  benefited  by  the  experi- 
ences and  advice  of  other  gardeners,  amateur 
as  well  as  professional,  having  for  about  three 
decades  read  and  reviewed  all  the  new  garden 
books  for  the  New  York  Evening  Post.  It 
was  in  the  Evening  Post — with  which  I  have 
had  the  honor  of  being  connected  forty  years 
as  musical  and  epicurean  editor — that  fifteen  of 
the  chapters  in  this  book  about  my  garden  in 
Maine  first  appeared. 

It  was  Mr.  Simeon  Strunsky,  leading  edi- 
torial writer  on  that  paper,  who  suggested  this 
exploiting  of  my  horticultural  experiences.  To 
him,  and  to  the  president  of  the  Evening 
Post  company,  Mr.  Edwin  F.  Gay,  who  has 
kindly  allowed  their  reproduction  in  book 
form,  I  have  dedicated  this  ^volume.  I  also 
wish  to  thank  Good  Housekeeping  and  the 
editor  of  House  and  Garden,  Mr.  Richardson 
Wright,  for  permission  to  reprint  articles  con- 
tained in  this  book.  Chapters  I,  II,  III,  IV, 
XXII,  and  XXVIII  have  not  heretofore  ap- 
peared in  print.  I  may  be  permitted  to  add 
that  while  these  chapters  appeared  in  the  press 
I  received  many  letters  from  all  over  the  coun- 
try expressing  the  hope  that  they  would  be 
conveniently  reproduced  between  the  covers  of 
a  book. 

Am  I  vain  in  consequence?  An  uncle  of  mine, 
Charles  Black,  used  to  say,  "Whoso  bloweth 
not  his  own  horn  the  same  shall  not  be  blown.*' 


xviii  PREFACE  °fc 

Have  I  not  reason  to  be  stuck  up  when  the 
foremost  gardener  in  the  whole  world,  Luther 
Burbank,  wrote  me,  after  reading  some  of  the 
chapters,  that,  quite  apart  from  what  I  have 
written  about  his  work,  which  he  pronounces 
"very  accurate,"  the  chapters  in  this  book  are, 
in  his  opinion,  "the  best  that  have  so  far  been 
written  on  garden  subjects." 

Inasmuch  as  I  wrote  this  book  for  men  and 
women  who  have  brains  and  know  how  to  use 
them,  I  have  devoted  a  considerable  number  of 
pages  to  the  gardening  of  the  future  as  exemplified 
by  the  activity  of  Mr.  Burbank,  Henry  Eckford, 
and  other  plant  breeders  who  are  beautifying 
our  flowers  and  making  our  garden  vegetables 
more  palatable.  I  have  done  this,  partly,  in 
the  hope  that  those  of  my  readers  who  have 
the  necessary  means  and  leisure  will  help  to 
promote  what  might  be  called  these  plant 
eugenics. 

Let  no  one  think  for  a  moment  that  there  is 
not  a  great  deal  more  to  do.  In  view  of  the 
simply  amazing  amelioration  of  most  garden 
plants  since  the  day  when  our  parents  were 
young,  I  have  expressed  the  opinion  (in  the 
chapter  on  "Favorite  Garden  Flowers")  that  it 
seems  almost  impossible  still  further  to  improve 
them,  except  in  fragrance  and  flavor,  but  Mr. 
Burbank  takes  a  much  more  sanguine  view. 
In  a  letter  to  me  dated  September  8,  1921,  he 
wrote : 


«  PREFACE  xix 

The  flower  improvers  have  still  a  whole  universe  in 
improving  them  —  not  only  as  to  fragrance,  but  in  ten 
thousand  other  ways  not  imagined  by  any  ordinary 
florist.  Twenty  years  ago  the  carnation  was  thought 
to  be  as  nearly  perfect  as  it  could  be  made.  On  a  visit 
to  Long  Island  I  told  Mr.  Charles  W.  Ward  a  simple 
thing  which  I  had  discovered  regarding  the  carnation, 
and  he  told  me,  before  he  died  here  in  California,  many 
times  that  he  made  considerably  over  half  a  million 
dollars  out  of  the  carnation  from  my  plan,  as  he  used  to 
say,  "before  the  other  fellows  got  on  to  it." 

Fragrance,  of  course,  is  lacking  in  many  flowers, 
though  I  have  added  it  to  the  calla,  verbena,  and  dahlia, 
and  intensified  it  in  practically  all  the  flowers  with  which 
I  have  worked.  Besides  fragrance  we  must  have  flowers 
of  a  more  uniform  growth  and  color,  new  combinations 
of  shades,  hardier  ones,  those  which  bloom  longer  in 
the  season,  those  which  remain  fresh  longer  after  cut- 
ting or  on  the  plant,  and  so  many  other  things  that  are 
totally  inconceivable  to  the  ordinary  person  that  it  is 
not  necessary  to  mention  them. 


There  are  two  kinds  of  books  on  gardening. 
The  more  numerous  kind  is  for  reference  rather 
than  for  reading,  giving  useful  hints  according 
to  a  regular  scheme.  The  other  kind  is  exempli- 
fied by  Charles  Dudley  Warner's  My  Summer 
in  a  Garden,  which,  while  entertaining  to  all 
who  love  gardens,  gives  very  little  useful  infor- 
mation. I  have  tried  to  combine  the  two  kinds 
—  to  give  a  great  deal  of  horticultural  up-to- 
the-minute  information,  but  in  a  readable 
fashion.  It  is  for  the  readers  to  decide  whether 
I  have  succeeded.  I  hope  the  book  will  fall 


xx  PREFACE  *» 

into  the  hands  of  many  who  know  little  about 
gardening  as  a  sport  and  a  thrill  factory;  for 
one  of  my  main  objects  is  to  mobilize  new 
recruits  and  multiply  the  number  of  garden 
maniacs. 


GARDENING 
WITH  BRAINS 


CHAPTER  I.    A  MOUNTAIN  GAR- 
DEN IN   MAINE 

MAINE  is  the  only  state  in  the  Union 
where  sugar  cane  cannot  be  raised. 
It  grows  there  only  a  few  feet  high 
and  the  sap  isn't  sweet.  If  all  our 
cane  sugar  had  to  be  raised  in 
Maine  it  would  cost  about  a  thou- 
sand dollars  a  pound. 

Maine  corn,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  sweetest 
corn  raised  in  this  country  or  anywhere.  Most 
of  the  canned  corn  in  the  market  pretends  to 
come  from  that  state,  or  is  labeled  "Maine 
Style."  That  tells  the  whole  story. 

A  strange  paradox — for  corn  is  a  hot-climate 
plant  quite  as  much  as  is  sugar  cane.  The  two 
plants  are  cousins,  and  at  a  distance  look 
almost  alike. 

How  do  I  explain  this  paradox?  I  don't  try 
to  explain  it;  I  simply  state  it  as  a  curious  fact. 
I  tried  sugar  cane — once,  and  never  again. 
But  corn — sweet  corn — has  the  place  of  honor 
in  my  vegetable  garden,  which  is  situated  in 
Oxford  County,  near  the  picturesquely  located 
village  of  Bethel. 

Mount  Washington  and  the  rest  of  the  Presi- 
dential Range  of  the  White  Mountains  are  in 
full  sight,  less  than  twenty  miles  to  the  south- 
west. At  the  time  we  start  our  garden,  early  in 
May,  Washington  and  its  neighbors,  Jefferson 
and  Madison  in  particular,  are  still  clad  occasion- 


4  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  « 

ally  in  robes  of  snow  reaching  down  almost  to 
their  feet,  and  chill  breezes  come  to  our  garden 
from  them. 

On  the  other  side  are  the  mountains  of 
Maine,  the  highest  of  which,  Speckle  (silly 
name!) — which  has  recently  been  proved  to  be 
a  little  higher  than  the  better-known  Katahdin 
— is  even  nearer  to  us  than  Mount  Washington; 
not  so  near,  fortunately,  as  to  inflict  on  us  the 
July  and  August  frosts  which  sometimes  ruin  the 
crops  of  the  farmers  who  dwell  near  its  foot. 
But  we  have  had  frosts  the  third  week  in 
June  and  before  the  end  of  August;  and  in 
twenty  summers  up  here  I  have  never  known 
the  first  autumn  frost  to  hold  off  later  than 
September  21st. 

My  object  in  giving  these  details  is  to  justify 
the  title  of  my  book,  Gardening  With  Brains. 
By  using  such  brains  as  have  been  placed  at  my 
disposal  I  have  been  able  to  succeed  wonderfully 
with  my  flower  and  vegetable  beds,  without  a 
single  failure  in  twenty  summers,  despite  dis- 
couraging frosts — and  droughts;  for  this  region 
is  not  usually  blessed  with  sufficient  spring 
rains,  and  there  are  awfully  hot  days  in  summer. 
In  1920 — the  summer  of  perpetual  rain  south  of 
Maine — we  had  seven  weeks  of  drought;  and 
one  week,  when  New-Yorkers  were  quite  com- 
fortable, we  had  98  to  100  in  the  shade,  day 
after  day. 

The  days  are  longer  here,  too;  but  the  extra 


1?  A  MOUNTAIN  GARDEN  5 

hours  of  sunlight,  I  need  not  say,  accelerate  the 
growth  of  garden  plants  and  give  the  corn  and 
peas  and  other  vegetables  such  succulence  and 
richness  of  flavor  as  you  will  not  easily  find 
elsewhere. 

If  my  way  of  gardening — original  in  some 
details  and  unconventional  on  the  whole — has 
given  such  satisfaction  on  a  knoll  exposed  to 
fierce  mountain  blasts  and  the  other  disadvan- 
tages referred  to,  it  surely  cannot  fail  in  gardens 
more  favorably  located. 

But,  no  matter  how  well  situated  and  cli- 
matically favored  your  garden  may  be,  you  will 
have  to  have  your  wits  about  you,  looking 
ahead  all  the  time. 

With  all  my  alleged  brains,  and  after  a  gar- 
dening experience  of  over  half  a  century,  I 
made  a  stupid  blunder  in  the  summer  of  1920, 
which  taught  me  a  lesson  for  the  next  half 
century.  (I  mean  almost  literally  what  I  say, 
for  my  gardening  has  done  such  wonders  for  my 
health  that  at  sixty-seven  I  feel  like  thirty- 
seven  in  every  way,  and  I  fully  expect  to  reach 
the  age  of  one  hundred.) 

In  that  summer  there  was  a  nation-wide 
express  strike,  and  freight  moved  not  much 
faster  than  a  glacier.  By  delaying  to  order  my 
seed  potatoes  till  I  thought  it  would  be  safe  to 
ship  them  north,  I  had  to  pay  nine  dollars  a 
bushel  for  what  I  could  get,  but  some  of  the 
fancy  extra  varieties  I  wanted  to  plant  could 


6  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS        ^ 

not  be  obtained  even  at  that  price.    Nor  could 
I  get  all  the  fertilizer  I  wanted  in  time. 

WHAT  SEEDS   TO  BUY 

The  brainy  thing  to  do  is  to  order  in  January 
everything  you  may  need  in  your  garden  the 
next  April,  May,  or  June.  This  includes  seeds 
of  all  kinds.  The  seedsmen  usually  send  out 
their  catalogues  in  January.  As  soon  as  you 
get  yours — and  it  is  wise  to  have  several,  from 
reputable  firms  like  Burbank,  Burpee,  Vaughan, 
Dreer,  Vick,  Thorburn,  Henderson,  Salzer,  etc., 
which  are  all  free — make  out  lists  of  what  you 
want  and  mail  them.  Most  people  wait  till 
spring,  with  the  result  that  seedsmen  are 
swamped  with  orders  and  find  it  impossible  to 
supply  all  their  customers  at  the  "psycho- 
logical moment,"  which  means  the  difference 
between  a  whole  season's  success  or  failure. 
Think  the  matter  over,  act  promptly,  and  you 
won't  find  yourself  wringing  your  hands  some 
day  in  April  or  May  and  wishing  you  had  had 
your  seeds  in  the  ground  "in  time  for  this 
glorious  rain."  A  drought  may  follow  that 
rain  and  prevent  you  from  getting  your  seeds 
started  for  several  weeks.  I  see  that  sort  of 
thing  happen  nearly  every  year  in  neighboring 
gardens. 

Use  your  wits,  too,  in  the  matter  of  govern- 
ment seeds.  Your  Congressman  will  send  you, 
of  his  own  accord  or  by  request,  packets  of 


*$  A  MOUNTAIN   GARDEN  7 

vegetable  and  flower  seeds.  They  are  free,  but 
you  do  not  know  who  raised  them  or  whether 
they  are  not  too  old  to  germinate;  and  you 
surely  do  not  wish  to  bestow  your  time  and 
labor  on  a  garden  for  two  or  three  months  and 
then  find  to  your  disgust  that  your  flowers  are 
commonplace  and  your  vegetables  tough  and 
insipid. 

Government  seeds  may  be  good,  and  doubtless 
they  are — sometimes;  but  you  lose  confidence 
in  them  when  you  find  out  something  about 
this  political  business  of  free  seed  distribution. 
Here  is  an  enlightening  paragraph  from  the 
New  York  Evening  Post: 

Do  our  farmers'  associations,  "resolving"  about  rail- 
road rates,  know  that  when  the  question  of  the  annual 
appropriation  for  the  distribution  of  seeds  came  up  this 
costly  year  (1920)  one  of  the  thirty-odd  Congressmen 
wanted  once  more  to  shift  this  job  to  the  Agricultural 
Department,  where  it  logically  belongs,  but  a  bipartisan 
majority  voted  $359,980  (50  per  cent  more  than  last 
year)  to  keep  this  graft  in  the  hands  of  the  grafters? 
This  was  done  secretly  in  committee  of  the  whole,  because 
no  man  dared  to  have  his  vote  recorded. 

You  must  have  miraculous  faith  in  human 
nature  if  you  think  that  seeds  bought  and  dis- 
tributed under  such  political  conditions  are 
worth  planting.  To  be  sure,  they  may  be  good, 
but,  as  I  have  said,  you  haven't  the  faintest 
idea  who  grew  them  or  how  old  they  are  (and 
some  seeds  do  not  germinate  after  the  second 


8          GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *» 

year).  In  midsummer  and  autumn,  when  you 
compare  your  free-seed  plants  with  those  of  a 
neighbor  who  bought  his  of  a  reputable  seeds- 
man, you  will  be  likely  to  make  sorrowful 
comparisons. 

One  September,  after  I  had  been  eating  Bur- 
bank  &  Chalk's  Early  Jewel  tomatoes  for 
several  weeks,  a  farmer's  wife  showed  me  a 
row  of  tomato  plants  (started  very  early  in  a 
cold  frame)  which  had  green,  half-grown  fruit 
on  their  vines,  none  of  which  could  possibly 
ripen  before  frost.  She  had  received  them 
from  a  Congressman,  who  should  have  known 
that  that  variety  could  not  mature  in  Maine. 
A  dime  spent  on  the  right  seeds  would  have 
given  her  bushels  of  ripe  tomatoes. 


CHAPTER  II.   RAPID  TRANSIT 
TO  THE  TABLE 

TIME  was  when  people  used  to  debate 
the   favorite  topic  whether  the  city 
or  the   country   offered   the   greater 
advantages  and  pleasures.    Doubtless 
such  discussions  are  still  in  vogue,  but 
at  present  the  ambition  of  those  most 
interested   is  to  combine  the  advantages,   in 
what  are  called  garden  cities — the  cities  of  the 
future. 

In  these  garden  cities,  of  which  England  and 
Germany  have  so  far  provided  the  best  examples, 
laborers  with  modest  incomes,  no  less  than  the 
well-to-do,  can  dwell  in  clean,  roomy  houses, 
breathe  fresh  air,  raise  their  own  flowers  and 
vegetables,  and  live  like  epicures. 

To  be  able  to  dwell  in  such  a  civic  garden 
altogether  is  indeed  a  privilege.  For  those 
who  cannot  do  so  there  are  various  expedients, 
the  most  tempting  of  which  is  the  allotment 
gardening  which  had  become  so  popular  in 
some  German  cities,  notably  Dresden,  before 
the  war.  There  anybody  could  for  a  small  sum 
rent  a  lot,  from  twenty  to  fifty  feet  square,  on 
the  edge  of  the  town,  where  those  whose  occupa- 
tion kept  them  indoors  could  go  with  their  fami- 
lies in  the  evenings  and  on  holidays.  Each  garden 
was  surrounded  by  a  vine-covered  fence,  and  there 
was  a  padlocked  gate  to  which  the  owner  alone 
had  a  key.  Some  of  the  larger  lots  contained 


10  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  « 
fruit  trees,  while  in  the  smallest  there  was  room 
for  peas  and  beans,  or  potatoes,  carrots,  straw- 
berries, and  other  table  luxuries  and  necessaries. 
As  Consul  Tredwell  justly  remarked,  "this  sub- 
stitution of  fresh  vegetables  for  the  cheaper 
varieties  of  store  food  is  of  primary  importance 
to  the  health  of  a  congested  community." 

If  city  folk  fully  realized  the  gain  in  health 
and  pleasure  that  would  result  from  eating 
"home-made"  vegetables  in  place  of  the  gro- 
cer's usually  wilted  wares,  the  building  of 
garden  cities  would  be  accelerated  with  a  rush, 
and  vegetarianism  would  suddenly  become  so 
popular  that  meat  prices  would  tumble  down 
all  in  a  heap,  so  that  every  consumer  would  be 
happy. 

Under  present  conditions  the  only  opportunity 
the  average  citizen  has  to  find  out  what  a  treat 
it  is  to  eat  vegetables  fresh  from  the  garden  is 
in  vacation  time,  at  a  farmhouse.  Compara- 
tively few,  however,  board  with  farmers,  and 
many  farmers,  moreover,  do  not  know  how  to 
raise  the  best  vegetables,  nor  their  wives  how 
to  cook  them  in  the  most  savory  ways.  As  for 
the  rural  inns  and  hotels,  it  is  surprising  how 
many  of  them  get  their  vegetables  in  cans  from 
the  cities;  and  while  canned  goods  of  all  kinds 
have  undoubtedly  improved  greatly  within  the 
last  few  years,  and  are  now,  perhaps,  as  desir- 
able as  most  of  those  sold  as  "fresh"  in  the 
cities,  they  are  no  more  to  be  compared  with 


•8  TABLE   RAPID  TRANSIT  11 

those  just  out  of  the  garden  than  cold-storage 
fish  with  trout  just  out  of  the  water. 

The  best  trout  I  ever  ate  were  three  that  I 
caught  one  summer  in  Yellowstone  Park,  and 
then  promptly  killed  and  cooked  without  taking 
them  off  the  hook.  One  I  boiled,  another  was 
steamed,  the  third  baked  on  a  hot  stone.  The 
boiling  water,  the  steam,  and  the  hot  stone 
were  those  of  a  geyser  on  the  edge  of  a  cool 
stream.  If  you  think  this  is  a  "fish  story"  let 
me  recall  the  fact  that  General  Grant  performed 
a  similar  feat  on  a  geyser  cone  in  Yellowstone 
Park. 

HOW   CORN   LOSES   ITS   SWEETNESS 

A  cooking  cone  like  that  would  be  a  fine  thing 
to  have  in  your  garden,  for  really  you  cannot 
get  your  own  peas  and  pod  beans,  your  young 
carrots  and  beets,  and  above  all  your  corncobs, 
into  the  pot  too  soon.  It  is  only  from  our  own 
garden,  says  a  writer  in  the  Country  Gentle- 
man, that  sweet  corn  can  be  depended  on  to 
be  at  its  best,  as  it  loses  its  sugary  content  soon 
after  pulling.  "It  has  been  proved  that  at  the 
end  of  twenty-four  hours  following  pulling,  30 
per  cent  of  the  sugar  will  have  disappeared,  and 
in  the  next  twenty-four  hours  about  25  per 
cent.  This  leaves  precious  little  sweetness  in 
our  sweet  corn  if  it  has  been  kept  for  two 
days."  Yet  that  is  the  condition  in  which  most 
of  the  corn  is  eaten  in  our  cities! 


12        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

"The  water  should  be  boiling  ere  the  corn  is 
pulled,"  is  a  good  old  maxim  which  we  follow 
scrupulously.  We  have  also  made  our  jarred 
Golden  Bantam  (as  improved  by  Burbank)  a 
feast  for  epicures  by  canning  it  when  it  is  as 
young  and  milky  as  when  it  is  eaten  directly 
from  the  cob.  We  score  the  rows  of  kernels 
with  a  sharp  knife  and  scrape  out  the  juice 
and  tender  meat,  leaving  all  the  husks  on  the 
ear.  You  ought  to  see  the  expression  on  the 
face  of  our  visitors  when  for  the  first  time  they 
taste  it.  Corn  like  that  ought  to  bring  five 
times  as  much  as  the  dry,  flavorless,  husky 
stuff  usually  sold  in  cans. 

We  city  folk  consider  ourselves  wondrous 
wise  in  having  made  arrangements  that  enable 
us  to  have  "fresh"  vegetables,  berries,  and 
fruits  all  the  year  round.  But  after  a  long 
transit  from  the  South  they  are  no  longer 
fresh.  Far  better  is  it  to  wait  till  they  are  "in 
season"  in  our  own  latitude. 

The  first  strawberries  in  our  markets  are 
small,  sour,  flavorless;  yet  thousands  gobble 
them  up  eagerly,  thus  taking  off  the  edge  of  the 
season's  appetite;  and  when,  a  little  later,  the 
luscious,  sun-ripened,  fragrant  berries  of  near- 
by gardens  arrive,  these  same  persons  miss  the 
virgin  joy  of  eating  the  superior  product. 

Epicures,  whose  chief  concern  is  superior 
flavor  (not  only  because  they  enjoy  it,  but 
because  they  know  that  it  stimulates  their 


*8?  TABLE   RAPID  TRANSIT  13 

digestive  glands  and  is  good  for  their  health  in 
general),  wait  till  they  are  sure  of  it,  knowing 
that  long-distance  berries,  fruits,  and  vegetables 
are  about  as  enjoyable  as  telephoned  kisses. 

The  disadvantages  of  long-distance  marketing 
are  being  gradually  diminished  by  superior 
shipping,  precooling,  and  chilling  arrangements; 
but  nothing  will  ever  take  the  place  of  vege- 
tables and  berries  gathered  from  your  own 
garden  an  hour  before  they  are  eaten. 

TOMATOES  AND   POTATOES 

"I  would  go  to  the  country  to  live,  if  for 
nothing  else,  to  find  out  what  corn,  peas,  and 
beans  can  be  at  their  best,"  exclaims  E.  P. 
Powell.  He  might  have  added  tomatoes.  It 
is  true  that  these  do  not  spoil  so  rapidly,  yet 
their  freshness  is,  from  the  epicurean  point  of 
view,  of  far  greater  importance  than  is  com- 
monly supposed.  Unfortunately  they  can  be 
picked  when  hard  and  green,  and  allowed  to 
redden  gradually.  Most  of  those  sold  in  the 
cities,  even  when  grown  in  the  neighborhood, 
are  now  of  that  kind.  Though  they  redden,  they 
do  not  really  ripen,  remaining  tough  till  they 
spoil,  at  no  time  fit  for  anything  but  a  stew. 
To  enjoy  them  in  a  salad,  or  eaten  out  of  the 
hand,  we  must  have  them  fresh  from  the  gar- 
den. The  difference  is  astounding.  Only  a 
fresh  tomato  has  the  peculiar  flavor  suggested 

by  the  fragrance  of  the  plant  itself  when  you 
2 


14  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  °2 
gently  crush  a  leaf.  Such  a  tomato  is  as  superior 
to  the  city  grocer's  as  a  fragrant  Havana  is  to 
a  five-cent  cigar. 

Fortunately  the  most  useful  of  all  vegetables, 
the  potato,  does  not  need  to  be  transferred  at 
once  from  the  garden  to  the  kitchen.  Yet  it 
deteriorates  sooner  than  is  commonly  sup- 
posed. Once  in  the  Yosemite  Valley  I  ate  one 
which  I  was  assured  was  a  year  old,  yet  it  was 
still  mealy  and  of  a  fine  flavor;  but  that  was 
an  exception.  Most  potatoes  cease  to  be  at 
their  best  when  five  or  six  months  old.  In  July, 
August,  September,  October,  November,  a  new 
baked  potato,  with  salt  and  fresh  butter,  makes 
a  delicious  meal  in  itself — a  specific  for  persons 
who  wish  to  gain  weight;  but  after  Christmas 
I  have  no  use  for  the  year's  crop.  The  tubers 
gradually  lose  flavor  and  become  soggy  and 
indigestible;  and  as  sprouting  time  approaches 
they  become  injurious  to  health  also,  because  of 
the  development  in  them  of  a  poisonous  prin- 
ciple common  to  plants  of  the  same  family. 

We  welcome  the  Bermudas  which  come  into 
the  market  ere  winter  is  over,  but  the  early 
varieties  are  usually  shipped  before  they  are 
mealy  or  have  much  flavor.  The  plain  truth  is 
that  there  are  several  months  every  year  during 
which  we  ought  to  give  up  potatoes  altogether, 
using  in  their  place  macaroni,  boiled  chestnuts, 
rice,  fried  hominy,  or  divers  other  dishes  that 
appeal  to  vegetarians  or  else  go  well  with  meat. 


CHAPTER  III.  WHAT  VEGE- 
TABLES WE  SHOULD  GROW 
OURSELVES,  AND  WHY 

WHEN  I  planned  my  first  trip  to 
Switzerland  the  first  thing  I  did 
was,  of  course,  to  buy  a  Baedeker. 
Of  all  guide  books  ever  printed, 
that  was  undoubtedly  the  best. 
It  covered  every  mountain,  vil- 
lage, road,  and  cow  path ;  gave  the  prices  of  all 
the  hotels  and  wayside  inns,  with  an  estimate  of 
their  degree  of  excellence;   and  the  hundreds  of 
glorious  viewpoints  were  one  and  all  described 
so  eloquently  and  yet  discriminatingly  that  I 
was  completely  at  a  loss  what  to  do.     It  was 
impossible  to  see  everything  in  a  few  short  sum- 
mer months.     What  was  I  to  prefer?     Fortu- 
nately, some  friends  who  had  been  everywhere 
in  the  Alps  made  out  a  route  for  me  which 
the  subsequent  experience  of  ten  summers  in 
Switzerland  showed  to  have  been  just  right. 

Readers  of  this  book  who  are  planning  their 
first  garden — and  my  principal  object  is  to 
persuade  as  many  as  possible  to  grow  their 
own  vegetables  and  flowers — will  do  well  to 
seek  similar  advice  from  friends  or  neighbors 
who  have  had  gardening  experience  and  know 
what  can  be  grown  best  in  your  county.  The 
catalogues  of  the  great  seed  growers  are  as 
elaborate  and  as  puzzling  as  a  Baedeker.  When 
you  first  look  them  over  you  mark  something 


16        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

on  nearly  every  page  that  you  surely  must 
have  in  your  virgin  garden.  But  beware!  The 
mistake  of  mistakes  is  to  plant  more  than  you 
can  take  care  of,  to  bite  off  more  than  you  can 
chew.  Remember  that  plants  have  to  be  wa- 
tered and  cultivated  frequently,  and  seed  pods 
clipped  every  day  or  two,  to  insure  large,  healthy 
blossoms  and  prolong  the  bloom.  A  pansy  or 
poppy  bed  five  feet  long  and  well  groomed  will 
give  you  infinitely  more  pleasure  than  a  neglected 
bed  five  times  as  big. 

As  regards  vegetables,  unless  you  have  lots 
of  time  and  plenty  of  help,  it  is  advisable  to 
grow  only  those  you  cannot  buy  reasonably 
and  in  prime  condition.  There  is  no  special 
reason  for  raising  your  own  potatoes,  for  exam- 
ple, or  beans  for  the  winter,  or  eggplants,  or 
cabbages,  or  turnips,  or  oyster  plants,  or  pump- 
kins. Every  farmer  grows  most  of  these;  you 
can  buy  them  in  any  city  or  country  store,  and 
the  grocers  cannot  spoil  them,  as  they  do  the 
peas  and  beans  and  lettuces  and  corn  and  car- 
rots and  beets  and  spinach  and  asparagus,  by 
exposing  them  for  hours  and  even  days  to  the 
desiccating  sun.  It  is  these  succulent  varieties, 
including  also  okra,  summer  squashes,  cucum- 
bers, and  tomatoes,  that  you  should  specialize  in. 

Cucumbers,  by  the  way,  while  taboo  to  many, 
become  as  digestible  as  squashes  if  cooked. 
They  are  delicious  creamed.  Celery,  oyster 
plants,  parsnips,  eggplants,  onions,  you  can  buy 


•K  WHAT  VEGETABLES  17 

at  the  grocer's;  but  radishes,  if  you  want  them 
crisp  and  just  the  right  age,  should  be  raised  in 
your  own  garden — a  new  planting  every  two  or 
three  weeks.  They  come  up  in  a  few  days  and 
are  the  easiest  to  grow  of  all  vegetables.  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  piquant  than  the  little  "red 
buttons"  and  scarlet  globes  and  French  break- 
fast radishes.  The  only  trouble  is  they  get 
pithy  and  stale  so  soon.  Far  less  troublesome 
in  this  way  is  the  long  white  Icicle;  it  is  as 
crisp  and  tender  and  well  flavored  as  the  reds, 
and  keeps  in  good  condition  much  longer. 
Still,  it  is  at  its  best  when  young  and  slender. 
Many  people  think  they  cannot  digest  radishes, 
but  they  are  usually  mistaken.  When  thor- 
oughly chewed  I  have  never  yet  known  them  to 
disagree  with  anybody.  They  are  also  not  bad 
creamed,  a  fact  which  few  know. 

BABY  CABBAGES  AND  SENATOR  PEAS 

When  these  chapters  were  appearing  in  peri- 
odicals I  received  many  letters  from  all  parts 
of  the  world  patting  me  on  the  back  or  offering 
suggestions.  One  of  the  most  interesting  of 
these  came  from  a  naval  architect  and  engineer, 
J.  Beavor  Webb,  who  related  his  experience 
with  cabbages  near  Southampton  in  England. 
He  raised  them,  from  seed  to  table,  in  six  to 
seven  weeks.  He  followed  the  usual  course  in 
starting  the  seed  in  a  frame  and  transplanting, 
but  what  his  plants  specially  benefited  by  was 


18        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ¥ 

liquid  manure  from  a  near-by  horse  stable,  which 
he  diluted  and  used  on  them  continually.  The 
variety  of  cabbage  used  was  Sutton's  Early,  or 
Jersey  Wakefield.  He  did  not  let  his  plants  reach 
maturity, but cutthem young.  "These  cabbages," 
he  adds,  "were  entirely  different  in  flavor  from 
those  grown  in  the  ordinary  manner.  Even  in 
Smithtown,  Long  Island,  where  I  subsequently 
raised  them,  they  used  to  talk  of  my  baby  cab- 
bages, and  said  they  were  the  best  they  ever  ate." 
Baby  cabbages,  no  doubt,  would  agree  with 
many  who  cannot  eat  of  the  full-grown  heads. 
The  chief  trouble  is  the  method  of  cooking. 
Cabbage  should  be  steamed  instead  of  boiled. 
Boiled  cabbage  is  vary"  indigestible,  sometimes 
deadly.  Steaming  is  also  the  best  way  to  cook 
potatoes,  peas,  carrots,  etc. — for  three  reasons: 

(1)  They  are  more  digestible  than  when  boiled; 

(2)  Their  flavor  is  richer;  and  (3)  The  mineral 
salts,  so  important  a  factor  in  food,  are  saved. 
It  is  too  bad  that  the  habit  of  serving  cabbage 
raw,  as  cold  slaw,  has  gone  out,  for  cabbage  is 
far  more  digestible  raw  than  cooked.    Better  in 
flavor,  too.    So  are  peas  and  carrots  and  corn 
and  turnips  and  tomatoes  and — as  I  only  just 
discovered  accidentally — asparagus  tips. 

BETTER  RAW  THAN  COOKED 

The  eating  of  these  vegetables  raw  should  be 
encouraged,  for  cooking  often  destroys  the 
"  vitamines  "  which  abound  in  them  and  which 


*»  WHAT  VEGETABLES  19 

are  so  essential  to  our  growth  and  maintenance 
of  health.  Here,  indeed,  we  find  one  of  the 
strongest  arguments  for  having  our  own  garden. 
I  wish  you  could  see  the  eagerness  with  which 
my  neighbor's  children  pluck  and  eat  raw  young 
carrots.  Paul  told  me  he  once  ate  fourteen, 
and  all  three  of  them  are  as  healthy  as  if  they 
ate  nothing  but  "  vitamines,"  or  mineral  salts. 

I  am  often  amused  at  the  amazement  with 
which  people  stare  at  me  when  I  tell  them  what 
vegetables  I  eat  raw — they  couldn't  look  more 
surprised  if  I  were  a  giraffe  with  two  necks,  or 
something  of  that  sort.  Simply  because  I  add 
corn  and  peas  and  carrots  and  turnips  and 
asparagus  to  the  things  they  eat  raw,  including 
radishes,  lettuce,  melons,  tomatoes,  cabbage, 
celery,  onions,  cucumbers,  and  forty  kinds  of 
fruits  and  berries.  My  little  nephew,  after 
eating  one  ear  of  corn  uncooked,  always  insisted 
on  having  his  cobs  raw,  because  he  found  them 
sweeter  than  the  boiled  or  roasted  ears;  and 
when  I  taught  him  to  eat  peas  right  from  the 
vine  he  exclaimed,  enthusiastically,  "Uncle,  I 
don't  want  mine  cooked  any  more!" 

Most  people  prefer  beef  to  veal;  but  in  the 
vegetable  garden  we  want  the  veal,  the  young 
plants,  every  time.  Baby  pod  beans  are  a 
million  times  better  than  the  huge,  dry,  full- 
grown  pods  which  alone  our  greengrocers  offer 
for  sale.  Hence  you  should  raise  your  own  pod 
beans.  Plant  only  the  stringless  kind.  Pole 


20  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  "S? 
beans  yield  longest.  If  any  of  your  beans  get 
over  three  inches  long  leave  them  to  grow  to  full 
size  and  eat  them  without  the  pods,  as  shell  beans. 

Baby  peas  are  more  expensive  than  the  full- 
grown  because  it  takes  so  many  more  of  them  to 
make  a  quart,  but  how  much  more  tender  and 
flavory  they  are!  Few  people  seem  to  have 
ever  had  all  the  young  peas  they  wanted  to  eat. 
When  I  wrote  to  a  wealthy  friend  of  mine 
regarding  a  dinner  my  family  had  just  eaten,  he 
wrote  back:  "It  makes  me  gasp  to  think  of 
your  eating  three  quarts  of  shelled  peas. 
Didn't  you  suffer  from  shell  shock?"  I  haven't 
spoken  to  him  since.  There's  a  limit. 

When  Luther  Burbank  was  asked  for  a  new 
kind  of  peas,  small  as  the  Parisian  pet  its  pois 
and  all  ripening  at  once  so  they  could  be  har- 
vested by  machinery  (for  canning),  he  provided 
them  in  a  few  years.  For  these  peas  I  have,  of 
course,  no  use.  In  a  family  garden  we  want 
peas  which  will  not  all  ripen  at  once,  so  we  can 
have  half  a  dozen  pickings  from  the  same  row. 
The  Senators,  unless  killed  by  drought,  will 
keep  on  blooming  and  yielding  pods  for  weeks. 

Another  way  to  prolong  the  season  is  to  plant 
different  kinds.  Some  ripen  in  two  months; 
others  require  three.  Late  peas  should  be 
planted  early,  too — as  early  as  the  ground  can 
be  worked.  Emphasis  is  placed  by  seedsmen  on 
the  fact  that  the  wrinkled  peas — which  are 
sweeter  than  the  smooth  kinds — are  apt  to  rot 


1?  WHAT   VEGETABLES  21 

if  put  in  while  the  soil  is  still  cold  and  wet; 
but  in  light,  sandy  soil  the  danger  is  not  great. 
In  any  soil,  take  the  risk. 

Peas  are  cranky;  they  can  stand  hot  weather 
only  if  their  roots  can  go  way  down  where  the 
soil  is  cool  and  damp.  If  you  can  thoroughly 
soak  these  roots  twice  a  week  in  dry  weather, 
you  need  not  worry  about  the  crop.  In  regions 
where  August  is  apt  to  be  cooler  and  rainier 
than  June  and  July,  a  July  sowing  of  early 
varieties  often  gives  gratifying  results. 

THE   SPINACH   PROBLEM   SOLVED   AT  LAST 

Too  many  Americans  say  they  do  not  like 
carrots  and  beets.  They  don't  know  what  they 
are  talking  about;  for  when  the  right  kinds, 
baby  size,  are  placed  before  them  they  say, 
"Yum-yum!"  and  ask  for  more.  Try  the 
Parisian  forcing  carrots.  They  are  always 
"small,  but,  oh  my!"  As  for  beets,  look  not 
upon  them  with  favor  when  they  are  red,  but  .. 
plant  the  light-pink  and  whitish  gassano  variety,  |/ 
which  is  not  only  sweeter  and  tenderer,  but~  ' 
remains  edible  longer  than  the  reds.  Sweeter 
still  are  the  sugar  beets.  There  is  a  general 
impression  that  these  are  good  only  for  making 
sugar  or  feeding  cattle,  and  most  of  the  seedsmen, 
who  ought  to  know  better,  do  not  offer  them  at 
all  among  the  vegetables  intended  for  the  table. 
Try  the  white  Wanzleben  sort  and  you  will 
find  it,  when  youngTas  tender  as  the  Bassano, 


22  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  ¥ 
and  even  sweeter.  The  first  time  we  had  them 
my  seven-year-old  nephew  exclaimed,  joyously, 
"Uncle,  let's  have  only  this  kind  next  summer." 

Of  all  vegetables,  carrots  and  spinach  are 
the  most  valuable  because  of  their  extraordinary 
richness  in  mineral  salts.  Carrots  are  easy  to 
raise  if  you  remember  that  they  are  slow  to 
germinate.  In  dry  weather,  therefore,  cover  the 
seed  beds  till  the  plants  are  up. 

Spinach  has  a  most  aggravating  habit  of 
going  to  seed  as  soon  as  the  weather  gets  hot. 
Many  a  time  have  I  been  fooled  by  optimistic 
seedsmen  who  dreamed  they  had  discovered  a 
summer-proof  variety,  and  finally  I  swore  off 
on  home-made  spinach  plants.  But  in  1920, 
being  a  good  deal  of  an  optimist  myself,  I  tried 
a  novelty  featured  by  Vaughan,  called  "Ant- 
vorskov."  We  found  it  equal  in  flavor  to  any 
spinach  we  had  ever  eaten  and — a  garden 
miracle! — it  was  not  only  "slower  to  run  to 
seed  than  any  other  sort,"  but  some  of  the 
plants,  which  I  left  on  purpose,  did  not  shoot 
up  after  being  in  the  ground  four  months! 

The  spinach  problem  is  solved !  If  you  think 
you  don't  care,  because  you  do  not  like  spinach, 
anyway,  try  it  the  French  way,  chopped  fine, 
mixed  with  a  big  lump  of  fresh  butter,  and  a 
poached  egg  dropped  on  it. 

Some  other  vegetables  that  belong  in  every 
garden — notably  corn  and  lettuce — are  referred 
to  in  other  chapters  of  this  book  (see  Index),  with 


*»  WHAT   VEGETABLES  23 

mention  of  the  best  varieties  to  grow  in  the  home 
garden.  Of  most  vegetables  the  large  seed  cata- 
logues offer  a  bewildering  variety.  I  like  Burpee's 
way  of  marking  with  a  O  the  sorts  he  considers 
best;  also,  Vaughan's  way  of  charging  an  extra 
price  for  his  choicest  seeds,  marked  "special." 
As  I  am  not  writing  a  horticultural  dictionary 
or  a  book  of  reference,  I  cannot  dwell  on  all  the 
vegetables  which  epicures  may  desire  in  their 
home  gardens  and  their  culture.  To  all  who 
want  a  helpful  guide  I  cannot  too  highly  recom- 
mend a  volume  published  by  the  Macmillan 
Co.,  The  Book  of  Vegetables  and  Garden 
Herbs,  by  Allen  French.  Get  it,  by  all  means; 
you  will  consult  it  daily  during  the  sowing 
season;  I  do  so  myself,  after  half  a  century's 
gardening  experience,  to  refresh  my  memory. 
The  plan  of  the  book  is  remarkably  practical. 
All  the  vegetables,  including  many  that  are 
little  known  but  desirable,  are  considered  in 
alphabetical  order,  from  agrimony  and  artichoke 
to  yam  and  zitkwa,  and  at  the  end  there  is  a 
table  of  seed  longevity  and  ounce  values.  Each 
vegetable  is  considered  from  every  important 
point  of  view.  Under  "Onion,"  for  example, 
there  are  these  subheads:  "General  Informa- 
tion," "Soil,"  "Distances,"  "Depth  to  Plant," 
"Thinning,"  "Transplanting,"  "Culture,"  "Fer- 
tilizer," "Harvesting,"  "Storage,"  "The  'New* 
Onion  Culture,"  "Diseases,"  "Pests."  To  have 
this  book  on  your  shelf  is  like  having  at  hand  an 


24  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  « 
experienced  gardener,  ready  to  answer  all  your 
questions  promptly.  Some  other  good  books 
will  be  referred  to  later  on. 

INCREASING  THE  YIELD 

Mr.  French  does  not  claim  too  much  when  he 
says  that  the  information  brought  together  in 
his  book  from  many  sources  "is  enough  to 
increase  by  half  the  yield  of  many  a  garden" — 
which  illustrates  the  importance  of  brains  in  rais- 
ing vegetables.  Here  is  a  sample  of  his  wisdom : 

A  still  better  method  of  hand  sowing  consists  in  making 
the  drill  deeper  than  directed,  scattering  along  it  some 
good  chemical  fertilizer,  rich  in  nitrogen,  and  covering 
this  with  earth  before  sowing  the  seed,  which  direct 
contact  with  the  chemical  would  injure.  The  fertilizer, 
thus  placed,  gives  the  plant  the  much-desired  quick 
start,  with  a  supply  of  food  for  later  growth. 

Whatever  seeds  you  sow,  try  to  give  them 
this  quick  start  by  using  the  kind  of  fertilizer 
or  manure  indicated  in  Mr.  French's  book. 
Such  a  start  is  of  superlative  importance  because 
of  our  hot  summers  and  possible  frosts  in  Sep- 
tember. Take  corn,  for  instance.  To  give  it 
"the  'pep'  and  vigor  so  necessary  to  win  the 
race  with  the  weeds,  weather,  and  especially 
that  wary  contestant,  Jack  Frost,"  as  L.  F. 
Graber  remarks,  it  must  have  some  quickly  avail- 
able commercial  fertilizer  from  the  very  start, 
well  mixed  with  the  soil.  (Bone  meal  and  muri- 
ate of  potash  are  particularly  good;  or  you  can 
use  a  little  powdered  hen  manure  or  commercial 


•8?  WHAT  VEGETABLES  25 

sheep  manure  in  each  "hill.")  Mr.  Graber  tells 
of  a  test  case  where  a  fertilized  part  of  a  field 
was,  after  six  weeks,  a  foot  and  a  half  higher 
than  the  unfertilized  corner  and  yielded  more 
at  the  rate  of  over  twenty  bushels  an  acre! 

WEEDS  AND   HOES 

An  early  start  will,  however,  do  little  good  if 
weeds  are  allowed  to  rob  your  crop  of  this 
fertilizer.  At  the  Illinois  Experiment  Station  we 
read  that  "with  a  well-prepared  seed  bed  where 
weeds  were  allowed  to  grow  with  corn  the  aver- 
age yield  for  an  eight-year  period  was  only  7.3 
bushels  an  acre,  compared  with  45.9  bushels  where 
the  weeds  were  scraped  off  with  a  sharp  hoe." 

"Scraped  off" — focus  your  attention  on  those 
two  words.  If  weeds  are  scraped  off  several  times 
a  year,  soon  after  a  rain,  they  can  do  no  harm  and 
you  will  in  one  hour  do  a  job  that  after  the 
weeds  are  big  and  deeply  rooted  will  take  you 
five  hours,  not  to  speak  of  the  harm  you  will  do 
your  vegetables  by  partly  uprooting  them,  too. 

Hoeing  is  always  hard  work,  but  think  of  the 
glorious  appetite  it  gives!  I  generally  appease 
mine,  so  far  as  breakfast  is  concerned,  right  in 
the  garden.  (I  work  two  or  three  hours  before 
breakfast.)  A  raw  yellow  turnip,  a  small  raw 
carrot  or  two,  the  peas  in  half  a  dozen  or  more 
pods,  a  radish,  and  a  tomato  right  off  the  vine 
make  a  feast  for  the  gods — sweet,  juicy,  rich  in 
vitamines  as  no  cooked  food  ever  is.  Really, 


26  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  ^ 
you  must  have  your  own  garden!  Sweet  corn, 
too,  is — let  me  say  it  again — more  sweet  and 
flavorsome  raw  than  cooked — that  is,  if  eaten  at 
once.  Still,  I  should  hate  to  give  up  the  boiled 
or  roasted  corn  with  sweet  butter  and  salt.  And 
shall  I  tell  you  something — something  that  will 
make  you  as  happy  as  a  stick  of  candy  did  when 
you  were  a  little  boy  or  girl? 

You  have,  of  course  (when  nobody  was  look- 
ing), after  biting  the  kernels  off  an  ear  of  corn, 
taken  the  cob  between  your  teeth,  closed  your 
lips  tightly  on  it,  and  sucked  and  sucked  and 
sucked.  Sugar  cane  isn't  sweeter,  nor  is  maple 
sap.  But  what  I  think  you  do  not  know  is 
that  the  flavor  of  no  two  cobs  is  exactly  alike. 
I  made  sure  of  this  years  ago.  We  usually  can 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  ears  at  once,  and 
when  the  corn  has  been  cut  off  and  the  cobs 
put  into  tin  pails  for  the  pigs,  I  get  ahead  of 
them  by  sucking  two  or  three  dozens  of  the 
cobs.  It's  "linked  sweetness  long  drawn  out," 
I  assure  you,  and  the  subtle  nuances  in  the 
flavor  are  astonishing. 1 

FRAGRANT  LUSCIOUS  MELONS 

Sweeter  than  the  sweetest  corn,  raw  or 
cooked,  is  the  melon,  particularly  the  canta- 

1  Plant  breeders,  professional  or  amateur,  could  and  should  improve 
the  flavor  of  the  best  corn  by  studying  these  nuances,  and  selecting 
for  the  next  crop  those  ears  which  are  sweetest.  This  can  be  easily 
done  by  putting  a  numbered  tag  on  each  ear  you  suck  and  a  tag  with 
the  same  number  on  the  second  ear  on  the  same  stalk. 


^  WHAT  VEGETABLES  27 

loupe,  and  this  is  always  eaten  raw,  although  I 
have  read  that  in  southern  France  some  kinds 
are  made  into  jam  or  preserved.  Successful 
melon  raising  is,  unfortunately,  possible,  as  a 
rule,  only  where  the  summers  are  too  warm  for 
our  own  comfort,  for  they  demand  warm  nights. 
So  luscious,  however,  are  they  that  I  try  them 
every  year  in  my  Maine  mountain  garden,  and 
once  in  a  while  I  succeed  fairly  well.  I  wouldn't 
waste  time  on  them  in  such  an  unfavorable 
locality  if  it  were  possible  to  buy  the  best  kinds. 
Those  sold  in  city  markets  and  peddled  in  the 
country  are  always  a  lottery;  in  a  dozen  you 
are  lucky  if  you  find  two  or  three  that  delight 
the  nose  and  the  palate.  In  restaurants  they 
are  usually  served  iced,  which  destroys  what 
little  flavor  they  had.  One  is  more  likely  to 
have  luck  with  the  Honeydew  melon,  which  is 
as  fragrant  as  a  peony — unless  it  is  picked  and 
sold  before  it  has  ripened  on  the  vine,  which  is 
too  often  the  case.  Never  buy  or  gather  a 
cantaloupe  unless  it  is  quite  fragrant;  the 
riper  it  is,  the  richer  the  perfume. 

Melons  are  such  a  lure  to  my  epicurean  soul 
that  I  sometimes  think  it  is  foolish  to  spend  my 
summers  in  our  coldest  state,  where  I  cannot 
raise  them.  However,  I  have  a  strong  imagina- 
tion and  an  enviable  faculty  for  remembering 
sense  impressions  and  gastronomic  treats,  so 
that  I  get  considerable  pleasure  from  just 
reading  about  melons.  Particularly  in  that 


28        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

wonderful  ten-dollar  book  of  eight  hundred 
pages  called  The  Vegetable  Garden  (E.  P. 
Button  85  Co.).  It  is  translated  from  the 
French  of  the  famous  specialist,  Vilmorin- 
Andrieux,  with  additional  pages  on  English 
and  American  varieties  by  W.  P.  Thomson. 
To  the  melon  thirty  pages  are  given,  and  when 
I  read,  e.g.,  regarding  the  Persian  melon,  that 
the  flesh  is  very  thick,  that  it  is  almost  without 
any  rind  and  almost  entirely  filling  the  fruit, 
rather  firm,  but  "very  finely  flavored,  juicy, 
sweet,  and  highly  perfumed,"  and  that  in  that 
country  there  is  a  great  number  of  varieties  of 
melons  of  which  "travelers  speak  in  terms  of 
admiration,"  I  want  to  buy  a  ticket  for  Persia 
immediately. 

One  must  look  over  the  pages  of  that  huge 
volume  to  realize  that  vegetable  eating,  in  our 
own  country,  is  still  in  its  infancy.  We  think 
we  know  something  about  potatoes,  for  instance; 
but  read  the  fifty  pages  devoted  to  them  by 
M.  Vilmorin-Andrieux  and  you  will  realize 
what  an  amazing  variety  of  these  tubers  we 
have  yet  to  sample  and  enjoy.  Let  the  French 
teach  us  about  them;  teach  us  also  how  to  cook 
them  and  other  vegetables  as  only  the  French 
can  cook  them;  teach  us,  furthermore,  to  insist 
on  our  rights.  "In  Paris,"  as  Mr.  Robinson 
writes,  "the  cook  has  the  upper  hand,  and  no 
grower  dare  send  him  the  wooden  fiber  which  is 
so  largely  sent  as  vegetables  to  the  London 


*»  WHAT  VEGETABLES  29 

market."  No  doubt  in  a  few  generations  Lon- 
don, and  our  own  cities,  will  catch  up  with 
Paris.  In  the  meantime  let  us  raise  vegetables 
in  our  own  gardens  and  cook  them  the  French 
way. 

Or  dress  them  the  French  way  when  you 
grow  lettuce,  romaine  or  other  salad  plants. 
Of  these  I  shall  speak  in  a  later  chapter.  I 
regret  to  say  that  little  progress  has  been  made 
in  the  appreciation,  in  this  country,  of  the  best 
of  all  salad  plants — escarole — since  I  made  a 
passionate  plea  of  several  pages  for  it  in  my 
Food  and  Flavor.  In  the  restaurants  there 
has,  however,  been  a  tremendous  and  gratifying 
increase  in  the  demand  for  salads  for  both 
lunch  and  dinner.  Greens  are  full  to  the  brim 
of  vitamines  (think  of  the  cattle  and  horses 
which  gain  all  their  strength  from  grass!);  and 
these  vitamines  (probably  simply  mineral  salts) 
seem  to  pass,  like  fruit  juices,  right  into  the 
blood  and  do  their  work  at  once.  Greens  with 
fruit  will  be  the  lunch  of  the  future,  in  town  as 
well  as  country. 


CHAPTER  IV.     FAVORITE  GAR- 
DEN FLOWERS 

IN  ye  olden  days  it  was  customary  to  grow 
some  of  the  flowers  in  the  vegetable  garden. 
I  have  adopted  this  custom.     Not  that  a 
well-groomed    vegetable   garden   needs  any 
floral    ornaments.     What    could   be    more 
decorative   than   the   flowers   of  a  row   of 
scarlet-runner   beans   climbing   to   the   top   of 
poles  twelve  feet  high?     What  more  beautiful 
than  potato  or  okra  blossoms?     What  more 
imposing  than  the  huge  golden  pumpkin  blos- 
soms, or  more  picturesque  than  the  ripe  green 
or  yellow  pumpkins  themselves,  studding  the 
field  after  the  corn  has  been  cut,  or  the  luxuriant 
vines  on  which   they   grew,   overgrowing   the 
whole  garden  if  you  let  them — and  why  not 
after  most  other  crops  are  in? 

Before  the  corn  is  cut,  how  gracefully  its 
broad,  rustling  leaves  wave  in  the  wind!  How 
stately  are  the  pollen-laden  tassels  which  fer- 
tilize the  silk  that  starts  the  ears!  What 
delicate  shades  of  green  and  yellow  and  red  in 
the  leaves  of  carrots,  beets,  chard!  Parsley 
needs  no  hair  curler  to  look  well,  and  crimpy 
Savoy  cabbage  fascinates  the  eye.  Red  ripe 
tomatoes  (cultivated  until  half  a  century  ago 
only  for  their  beauty — "love  apples,"  they  were 
called)  peep  from  the  green  foliage.  No,  I  say 
it  again,  the  vegetable  garden  needs  no  bor- 
rowing from  the  flower  garden  to  make  itself 


^         CHOICE   GARDEN  FLOWERS        31 

aesthetically  attractive.  To  cap  the  climax, 
what  flowering  plant  surpasses  the  multicolored 
stripes  of  Burbank's  Rainbow  corn,  or  the 
feathery  fluffiness  and  rich  green  of  asparagus? 

I  used  to  wonder  why  so  many  farmers  have 
no  vegetable  gardens,  not  to  speak  of  flower 
gardens.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  farmer's  time 
is  all  taken  up  with  his  field  crops  and  animals, 
though  he  may  work  from  5  A.M.  to  9  or  10  P.M. 
As  for  farmers'  wives,  it  is  seldom  their  house- 
hold duties  allow  them  time  and  energy  enough 
to  have  much  of  a  garden,  either  useful  or  orna- 
mental. 

There  are,  however,  two  flowering  plants 
which  may  be  found  on  nearly  every  farm,  par- 
ticularly in  New  England.  In  traveling  from 
New  York  to  Portland,  Maine,  I  have  often 
amused  myself  trying  to  find  a  farm  that  did 
not  have  a  big  clump  of  lilacs.  No  wonder 
they  are  favorites,  in  view  of  their  ravishing 
fragrance  and  easy  culture. 

NASTURTIUMS  NO   LONGER   "YELLOW   DOGS" 

The  nasturtium  is  the  other  favorite  that 
may  be  almost  always  found  somewhere  near  a 
farmhouse.  Its  being  showy  and  delicately 
fragrant  doesn't  fully  account  for  its  univer- 
sality. Other  flowers  are  equally  fragrant  and 
lovely,  but  they  are  not  so  easily  grown.  The 
nasturtium  is  a  little  more  trouble  than  the 
lilac  because  it  has  to  be  planted  every  year, 


32        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         <$ 

but  it  will  stand  more  neglect  than  any  other 
annual.  Regardless  of  weeds  and  drought  and 
impoverished  soil,  it  continues  to  bloom  till  frost; 
and  the  blossoms  do  not  have  to  be  picked,  like 
those  of  other  flowering  plants.  There  is  a 
belief  that  the  poorer  the  soil  the  larger  the 
number  of  flowers  in  proportion  to  the  leaves; 
but  do  not  allow  this  doctrine  to  beguile  you 
into  starving  your  nasturtium  plants.  Give 
them  a  rich  soil  to  grow  in,  for  if  you  don't  the 
flowers  will  not  have  those  long  stems  which 
women  who  arrange  bouquets  consider  so  neces- 
sary. I  raise  only  the  climbing  nasturtiums  and 
give  them  all  the  elbow  room  they  want.  Usu- 
ally I  plant  mine  along  one  side  of  the  poppy 
bed,  which  they  overrun  in  riotous  profusion 
after  the  poppies  are  gone. 

In  up-to-date  nasturtiums  the  circular,  pel- 
tate leaves — each  looking  "like  a  shield  on  the 
arm  of  a  soldier,"  or  like  lotos  leaves,  some  of 
them  oddly  bleached,  blotched,  and  striped — 
have  a  charm  of  their  own  which  quite  justifies 
their  luxuriance.  Whether  in  rows  or  clumps 
near  the  house,  or  hanging  down  from  a  wall  or 
a  tub,  or  climbing  a  fence  or  a  rock,  the  nas- 
turtium is  always  decorative.  Its  fragrance  is 
not  surpassed  for  delicacy  and  originality  or 
individuality,  or  whatever  you  choose  to  call  it, 
by  any  other  flower.  If  the  poets  have  not 
raved  about  it  as  they  have  about  the  rose  and 
the  violet,  it  is  doubtless  because  neither  its 


*£         CHOICE   GARDEN   FLOWERS        33 

common  name  nor  the  botanical  "tropaeolum" 
lends  itself  easily  to  the  versifier's  require- 
ments. 

As  for  its  colors,  I  once  knew  a  man  who, 
while  enjoying  the  fragrance  of  nasturtiums, 
hated  the  sight  of  them.  "Yellow  dogs,"  he 
called  them — but  that  was  years  ago,  before  the 
nasturtiums  had  suffered  a  sea  change  into 
something  rich  and  strange.  From  Colombia 
came  a  new  species,  the  Tropaeolum  lob- 
bianum,  with  red  flowers,  some  of  them  so 
dark  as  to  be  almost  black.  By  hybridizing 
these  with  the  yellows  the  seedsmen  got  nas- 
turtiums of  almost  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow, 
with  fascinating  stripes  and  blotches  and  shades 
in  endless  variety.  Scarlet,  bronze,  cherry  red, 
chocolate,  creamy  white,  purplish  crimson, 
blush  rose — these  and  other  colors  you  will  find 
represented  in  named  varieties  in  the  seed 
catalogues. 

Don't  order  any  yellows;  you  will  have 
them  anyway,  because  some  of  the  flowers 
revert  to  the  parental  colors.  As  Luther  Bur- 
bank  remarks,  "It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to 
keep  the  colors  of  the  various  nasturtiums 
separate."  That  doesn't  worry  me.  I  like  par- 
ticularly the  French  chameleon  and  the  hybrids 
of  Madam  Gunter  (also  French),  offering  a 
wide  range  of  exquisite  colors  and  beautiful 
markings  on  the  same  plants.  The  loveliest 
nasturtiums  I  ever  had  were  the  "Coquettes" 


34         GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ¥ 

offered  one  year  by  Burpee.  They  were  so 
called  because  of  their  being,  like  woman  in 
Virgil's  line,  "varium  et  mutabile  semper." 
Not  only  did  no  two  plants  have  the  same  spots 
and  stripes  and  colors,  but  on  the  same  plant 
and  vine  all  the  flowers  differed  from  one 
another — a  real  floral  kaleidoscope.  Unfor- 
tunately, this  adorable  variety  was  not  per- 
petuated, probably  because  of  the  "reversion" 
difficulties  which  are  so  great  in  this  flower. 
Because  of  its  extreme  variableness  Luther 
Burbank  specially  recommended  the  nastur- 
tium to  amateurs  who  wish  to  become  creators 
of  new  varieties  of  flowers.  (See  p.  186,  Vol.  X, 
of  his  Methods  and  Discoveries.) 

But  with  a  hundred  other  choice  flowers 
waiting  for  a  word  of  commendation,  I  must  not 
dwell  any  longer  on  this  favorite,  which  is 
unique  in  being  so  universal  and  democratic 
and  yet  so  aristocratic  and  refined. 

Have  you  ever  seen  one  of  the  mail-order 
catalogues  sent  out  by  some  department  stores — 
huge  volumes  of  nearly  a  thousand  pages, 
describing  and  picturing  tens  of  thousands  of 
all  sorts  of  things  which  somebody  living  in  the 
country  might  want?  Catalogues  of  flower 
seeds  are  not  so  voluminous  as  these,  yet  most 
of  them  list  a  bewildering  variety  of  plants,  not 
a  few  of  which  might  as  well  be  discarded. 
More  and  more  I  agree  with  E.  P.  Powell  that 
"most  of  the  annuals  take  more  time  and  room 


^         CHOICE   GARDEN   FLOWERS        35 

than  they  are  worth."  He  devotes  a  long 
chapter  of  his  The  Country  Home  to  telling 
what  flowering  plants  of  all  kinds  he  thinks 
ought  to  be  generally  favored.  His  advice  is 
sound. 

If  you  wish  to  consult  your  own  taste  or  use 
your  own  judgment  rather  than  his — or  mine — 
get  a  copy  of  Harriet  L.  Keeler's  Our  Garden 
Flowers  (Scribners),  a  delightful  book  to  lovers 
of  flowers,  giving  not  only  botanical  descriptions, 
with  276  illustrations,  but  telling  whence  they 
came,  and  relating  their  life  histories  and  grad- 
ual improvement.  The  author  modestly  claims 
for  her  volume  that  it  is  only  "fairly  complete" 
— yet  she  had  at  her  disposal  550  pages!  Do 
not,  therefore,  scold  me  if  in  this  chapter  I  call 
attention  to  only  a  few  of  the  very  finest  and 
most  highly  educated  plants  which  ought  to 
be  grown  in  all  gardens  the  makers  of  which 
have  brains,  industry,  patience,  time,  a  good 
soil,  and  plenty  of  water. 

The  amount  of  time  you  can  spare  is  the  first 
thing  to  be  considered.  If  you  have  plenty,  it 
would  be  inexcusable  not  to  grow  pansies, 
poppies,  and  sweet  peas.  These  I  consider  the 
most  enjoyable,  on  the  whole,  of  all  garden 
flowers,  and  I  have  therefore  given  a  whole 
chapter  to  each  of  them.  There  are  perhaps  a 
dozen  flowers  equally  beautiful  or  fragrant, 
but  some  of  them  bloom  only  a  few  weeks, 
whereas  the  three  favorites  I  have  named  can 


36  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  « 
be  made  to  bloom  from  two  to  six  or  even  eight 
months. 

LET  FRAGRANCE   DECIDE 

If  your  time  is  limited,  plant  flowering  shrubs, 
or  bulbs,  or  perennials  in  preference  to  annuals, 
because  they  are  generally — if  given  a  good 
start — better  able  to  take  care  of  themselves. 
Among  a  hundred  lilac  bushes  there  are  prob- 
ably not  three  which  receive  any  attention,  yet, 
ever  faithful,  they  bloom  from  year  to  year. 
Almost  equally  independent  are  most  other 
hardy  flowering  shrubs.  Among  the  multitude 
to  select  from,  choose  by  all  means  those  which, 
like  the  lilac,  delight  the  sense  of  smell  as  well 
as  the  color  sense. 

Earliest  of  all  flowers  in  our  parks  is  the 
Tartarian  honeysuckle,  the  blossoms  of  which 
are  in  such  a  hurry  to  perfume  the  air  that 
they  do  not  wait  for  the  leaves  to  appear.  You 
also  want,  of  course,  one  or  two  syringajbushes, 
also  called  mock  orange;  but  be  sure  to  get  one 
of  the  varieties  which  really  do  mock  the 
delicious  perfume  of  the  orange  blossom;  some 
don't  and  are  therefore  disappointing. 

Hydrangeas  are  coming  more  and  more  into 
favor,  and  so  are  the  Japanese  deutzias  and 
snowballs*  DUt  these  are  not  fragrant.  Nor  is 
the  dogwood,  or  the  spirea,  one  variety  of  which 
(Bridal  Wreath)  has  been  called  the  most  beau- 
tiful and  useful  of  shrubs.  But  the  striking 


*8?  CHOICE  GARDEN  FLOWERS  37 
new  ever-blooming  butterfly  bush  has  a  pleasant 
scent.  If  you  want  to  be  intoxicated  by  fra- 
grance, be  sure  and  grow  a 


strawberry  bush;  its  odor  is  ravishing,  unfor- 
getable.  I  have  kept  in  my  memory  for  more 
than  half  a  century  the  moment  when,  in  explor- 
ing a  deserted  farm,  I  came  across  a  calycanthus 
bush  ^nd  drank  in  the  voluptuous  sweetness  of 
its  wood  and  flowers. 

Among  the  hardy  climbers  there  are  some, 
like  the  feathery  clematis,  the  house-climbing 
ampelopsis  (Japanese  or  Boston  ivy),  and  the 
English  ivy,  which  are  very  desirable  for  decora- 
tive purposes,  yet  they  appeal  to  only  one  of 
our  senses,  whereas  cinnamon  vine,  the  Japanese 
(Hall's)  honeysuckle,  and,  above  all,  the  wis- 
taria, also  thrill  with  their  fragrance.  A  doubt- 
ing lover  who  can  lure  his  adored  one  into  a 
wistaria  bower  will  find  her  quite  unable  to  say 
"No"  in  such  a  blissful  atmosphere. 

Of  roses,  which  are  both  climbers  and  bushes, 
there  is  nothing  I  could  say  which  has  not  been 
said  enthusiastically  a  thousand  times.  There 
are  more  than  five  thousand  species  and  vari- 
eties; the  best  of  them  are  briefly  described  in 
the  catalogues  of  seedsmen,  who  also  usually 
supply  free  leaflets  telling  about  applications 
of  liquid  manure  and  bone  meal  and  winter 
protection  and  other  things  amateur  rose  grow- 
ers should  know.  My  only  bit  of  advice  is, 
select  those  which,  besides  lovely  color  and 


38        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *» 

form,  also  have  fragrance.  Why  buy  half  a 
loaf  when  for  the  same  money  and  care  you  can 
get  a  whole  loaf? 

Mr.  W.  J.  Chittenden,  F.  R.  H.  S.  and  editor 
of  Garden  Life,  in  the  splendid  article  on 
roses  contributed  by  him  to  Black's  Gardening 
Dictionary  (a  most  useful  volume  of  1,237 
pages),  refers  to  the  keen  disappointment  felt  by 
flower  lovers  because  so  many  fine  roses  lack  the 
charm  of  fragrance.  "In  the  old-fashioned 
Hybrid  Perpetuals  fragrance  was  more  common 
than  it  is  among  the  present  race  of  Hybrid 
Teas;  it  is,  however,  satisfactory  to  note  that 
many  of  these  are  deliciously  scented,  and  some 
raisers  make  this  one  of  their  ideals."  He  gives 
the  names  of  fifty  varieties  in  which  fragrance 
is  especially  pronounced. 

WHY   BULBS  AND  PERENNIALS? 

Flowers  from  bulbs  are  usually  so  lovely  and 
so  easily  grown  that  there  is  no  excuse  for  not 
having  some  in  every  garden.  Even  the  busy 
farmer's  wife  can  find  a  few  odd  moments  in 
the  autumn  to  remove  a  small  portion  of  turf 
here  and  there,  loosen  up  the  soil  and  mix  with 
it  some  bone  meal  or  old  manure  (fresh  manure 
should  never  be  used  with  bulbs),  and  then 
replace  it  firmly  after  inserting  a  crocus  or 
narcissus  bulb.  If  this  is  done  on  an  orna- 
mental lawn  the  mower  must  spare  these  spots 
until  the  bulb's  leaves  have  become  yellow. 


*»         CHOICE   GARDEN   FLOWERS        39 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  crocus,  the  nar- 
cissus, the  tulip,  the  hyacinth,  and  most  other 
flowers  grown  from  bulbs  bloom  only  a  short 
time.  Many  hesitate,  on  that  account,  to  give 
them  whole  beds  to  themselves.  But  this  is  not 
necessary.  The  leaves  of  these  plants  die  and 
disappear  soon  after  blooming,  which  leaves 
the  field  clear  for  other  flowers.  While  the 
tulips,  etc.,  are  still  in  bloom  you  sow  in  among 
them  the  seeds  of  annuals  like  portulaccas,  I 
petunias,  poppies,  verbenas,  dianthuses,  cos-  I 
moses,  which  in  turn  pass  away  when  the 
autumn  frosts  come,  thus  leaving  the  ground 
clear  for  the  bulbs  to  push  up  again  the  following 
spring. 

Hyacinths  are  exquisitely  scented,  which  is  an 
additional  reason  for  growing  them;  so  are  daffo- 
dils, jonquils,  and  other  varieties  of  narcissus, 
like  the  poeticus  and  polyanthus  or  nosegay 
narcissus.     Sweet-scented  are  the'  freesias  and 
many  of  the  lilies — above  all  the  hemerocallis,  or 
yellow  lily,   a  bed  of  which  simply  must  be 
included  in  every  epicure's  garden.    Some  of  the 
tulips,  notably,  among  the  cottage  tulips,  Mrs.  | 
Moon,  Columbus,  and  the  Gesneriana  (Lutea,  | 
Lutea  pallida,  and  Major;    I  should  like  to  | 
know  something  about  this  Gesner),  and  among  . 
the  Darwins  the  Pride  of  Haarlem,  are  distinctly  I 
sweet  scented.    Others  have  only  a  sort  of  faint 
generic  tulip  odor. 

For  the  eye  the  most  beautiful  tulips  are  the 


40        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         "8 

Darwins  and  the  well-named  parrot  tulips, 
which  look  almost  as  exotic  and  orchidlike  as 
gladioli.  I  asked  Luther  Burbank  why  he  has 
not  got  busy  intensifying  the  fragrance  of  some 
of  the  tulips,  as  he  has  done  in  the  case  of  other 
flowers,  like  the  larkspurs,  callas,  dahlias,  ver- 
benas, and  some  lilies,  especially  the  callas,  to 
which  he  has  imparted  the  odor  of  the  Parma 
violet,  the  rarest  of  violet  odors.  He  answered : 
"Tulips  do  not  thrive  very  well  in  our  particular 
locality,  but  they  can  all  be  made  to  have  fra- 
grance. The  gladiolus,"  he  added,  "will  some- 
time have  fragrance."  I  sincerely  hope  so. 1 

This  is  a  matter  of  very  great  importance  to 
flower  gardeners  and  breeders.  If  you  have 
studied  the  seedsmen's  catalogues  for  the  last 
two  or  three  decades  you  will  know  that  fra- 
grant flowers  are  coming  more  and  more  to 
the  front.  "It  is  probably  true  with  regard  to 
fragrance,  as  with  regard  to  combinations  of 
colors,  that  there  are  unrevealed  hereditary 
factors  in  the  germ  plasms  of  most  flowers," 
says  Burbank.  To  him  fragrance  is  "the  very 
soul  of  the  flower."  With  all  its  attractive 
qualities,  he  found  the  dahlia  "not  quite  a  per- 
fect flower  because  it  lacks  fragrance."  "There 
is  no  line  of  experimental  work  with  the  flowers 
that  should  be  more  attractive  than  the  develop- 

1  For  some  very  interesting  remarks  on  enhancing  the  fragrance  of 
flowers  see  Burbank's  vol.  ii,  p.  80;  ix,  23-29,  219,  247;  x,  107-110. 
Read  also  the  summary  in  Harwood's  New  Creations  in  Plant 
Life  (Macmillan),  chapter  en  "Breeding  for  Perfumes." 


•$         CHOICE   GARDEN   FLOWERS        41 

ment  of  fragrant  varieties  of  some  odorless 
flowers,"  he  declares.  One  of  the  chief  manu- 
facturers of  perfumery  in  this  country  took  the 
liveliest  interest  in  Burbank's  work  along  this 
line.  He  remarked  that  one  of  the  main  reasons 
why  perfumery  is  not  extracted  in  this  country 
is  because  people  pay  so  much  attention  to 
large  things  in  agriculture — thousand-acre  farms 
and  the  like — when,  in  reality,  far  more  money 
could  be  made  along  intensive  lines;  as,  for 
example,  in  the  line  of  perfumery  production. 

Most  kinds  of  garden  flowers  are  far  more 
beautiful  in  shape  and  varied  in  color  than 
they  were  in  the  days  of  our  grandparents. 
In  some  of  them  it  would  seem  as  if  the  limit  of 
beautification  had  been  reached.  /  am  there- 
fore convinced  that  during  the  next  few 
decades  the  breeders  of  ornamental  plants 
will  devote  their  attention  more  and  more 
to  the  fragrance  of  flowers,  following  the 
lead  of  Luther  Burbank.  In  that  direction 
there  is  room  for  much  improvement. 

PEONIES   AND   PERENNIAL   PHLOX 

Hardly  had  I  written  the  foregoing  page 
when  the  rural  postman  brought  me  the  fall 
catalogue  for  1921  of  one  of  the  largest  and 
most  reliable  seedsmen.  Opening  it  at  random 
on  page  27,  the  heading  "Dreer's  Fragrant 
Peonies"  stared  me  in  the  face — an  instance 
showing  how  the  emphasis  is  beginning  to  be 


42        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         "$ 

placed  on  fragrance.  There  are  a  great  many 
varieties  of  peonies — more  than  a  thousand — 
and  a  large  proportion,  while  lovely  to  look  at, 
are  unscented  or  even  have  an  unpleasant  odor. 
Mrs.  Edward  Harding  devotes  nineteen  pages 
of  her  superbly  illustrated  Book  of  the  Peony 
(Lippincott)  to  a  list  of  125  superior  varieties, 
marking  those  which  are  fragrant  with  an  X 
and  excluding  the  ill-smelling  varieties  alto- 
gether. The  rose  peony  has  an  odor  singularly 
and  deliriously  like  that  of  the  rose.  Other 
sorts  vary  in  odor  almost  as  widely  as  in  color 
markings.  In  the  Bulletin  of  the  American 
Peony  Society  (No.  2,  1916)  A.  H.  Fewkes 
calls  attention  to  the  curious  fact  that  color 
seems  to  have  some  influence  on  odor.  While 
the  full  double  rose-pink  varieties  are  the  most 
fragrant,  the  single  or  semidouble  reds  are 
inclined  to  be  ill  smelling,  and  the  full  double 
reds,  in  most  instances,  lack  odor  entirely.  The 
scented  kinds  run  "the  entire  gamut  from  a 
pleasant  freshness  of  odor  up  to  intoxicating 
fragrance." 

To  speak  of  the  "intoxicating"  fragrance  of 
some  peonies  is  no  exaggeration;  nor  does  Mrs. 
Harding  use  too  strong  language  when,  in  writing 
about  the  wonderful  shapes  and  texture  and 
colors  of  peonies,  with  their  glossy  silken  petals 
in  a  hundred  shades,  tints,  and  combinations  of 
white,  pink,  yellow,  and  red,  she  declares  that 
"one  who  sees  for  the  first  time  typical  speci- 


«         CHOICE  GARDEN  FLOWERS        43 

mens  of  the  modern  peony  is  thrilled  with  their 
breath-taking  loveliness;  even  those  who  know 
well  all  the  fascinations  of  the  flower  are  stirred 
by  it  to  new  wonder  and  delight  each  recurring 
year."  The  rose,  she  declares,  "fine,  exquisite, 
and  fragrant  as  it  is,  must  yield  first  rank  to 
the  modern  peony,  which  by  reason  of  its  sheer 
wealth  of  splendor  and  majesty  of  presence  is 
now  entitled  to  be  called  the  Queen  of  Flowers." 

Long  ago  the  Chinese  called  it  Sho  Yo,  which 
means  the  "most  beautiful"  of  flowers.1 

From  Texas,  the  connecting  link  between  the 
United  States  and  Mexico,  comes  one  of  our 
most  dazzling  colored  annuals — Phlox  Drum- 
ncLondii;  one  of  its  names,  indeed,  is  Pride  of 
Texas.  It  is  so  popular  that  one  of  our  leading 
seedsmen,  James  Vick,  alone  has  a  crop  of 
twenty-five  acres  of  it  in  separate  colors — 
white,  salmon,  pink,  scarlet,  rose,  eyed  or 
striped  or  plain — but  always  dazzling;  the 
Greek  word  phlox  means  flame.  Vaughan  con- 
siders it  "the  showiest  and  most  easily  raised  of 
all  annuals."  Much  of  its  rainbow  splendor  is, 
of  course,  due  to  the  efforts  of  hybridizers,  but 
even  as  it  grew  wild  in  Texas  a  century  ago  the 

1  Full  cultural  directions,  etc.,  are  given  in  Mrs.  Harding's  volume. 
She  warns  against  mulching  with  manure  in  the  fall.  Use  bone 
meal  and  wood  ashes  to  enrich  the  soil.  Henry  A.  Dreer  of  Phila- 
delphia has  issued,  for  25  cents,  a  pamphlet  of  78  pages,  Hints  on 
the  Growing  of  Bulbs,  which  gives  all  necessary  cultural  direc- 
tions for  peonies,  phloxes,  irises,  lilies,  begonias,  gladioli,  and  the 
favorite  other  plantis  grown  from  bulbs  and  roots.  A  good  book  to 
have  on  your  shelves  is  Mrs.  Ely's  A  Woman's  Hardy  Garden. 


44        GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         « 

Phlox  Drummondii  must  have  been  very 
lovely.  An  Englishman  who  in  1835  sent  some 
seeds  home  was  rewarded  by  having  his  name 
immortalized  in  connection  with  it.  It  is  not 
often  that  fame  is  so  easily  won. 

Native  Americans,  also,  are  the  perennial 
phloxes.  E.  P.  Powell  places  these,  among 
perennials,  right  after  roses  and  lilies — and 
who  but  a  peonyite  could  disagree?  I  cannot 
imagine  my  summer  home  without  groups  or 
rows  of  these  tall,  stately  plants;  their  fra- 
grance (stronger  than  that  of  the  annual  phlox) 
is  uniquely  agreeable  and  varies  in  the  different 
varieties,  as  does  that  of  peonies  and  lilies.  Be 
sure  and  get  your  roots — which  it  is  best  to  set 
out  in  the  early  autumn — from  a  reputable 
dealer,  and  to  select  named  sorts,  thus  avoiding 
the  mediocrities  which  infest  flower  gardens 
like  everything  else.  To  avoid  frequent  watering 
later  on,  dig  the  soil  two  feet  deep  and  put  in  a 
lot  of  moisture-retaining  well -rotted  manure  and 
leaf  mold,  with  which  bone  meal  and  wood  ashes 
should  be  mixed.  But  remember  that,  like  most 
perennials,  phloxes,  to  blossom  freely,  need 
several  thorough  waterings  just  before  and 
while  they  bloom. 

The  blooming  period  can  be  made  to  extend 
from  June  to  October  by  breaking  off  the  spikes 
as  soon  as  the  multitudinous  flowers  have 
dropped  off. 

In   the   case   of  the   peonies   the   blooming 


•«         CHOICE   GARDEN   FLOWERS        45 

period  cannot  be  thus  prolonged;  but  by 
selecting  early,  midseason,  and  late  varieties  it 
can  be  extended  to  about  two  months.1 

LILIES,   IRISES,   AND   GLADIOLI 

I  have  already  given  peremptory  orders  that 
a  small  bed  of  Hemerocallis  flava,  or  lemon  j 
lily,  simply  must  find  a  place  in  every  epicure's  ' 
garden  because  of  its  ravishing  fragrance.  But 
there  are  other  lilies  no  less  alluring  by  their 
scent,  not  to  speak  of  their  lovely  shapes  and 
colors.  The  hemerocallis  is  also  called  "day 
lily"  because  each  flower  blooms  only  a  day, 
but  there  are  many  others  to  succeed  it,  and  it 
has  the  advantage  of  "needing  no  coddling," 
whereas  other  varieties  do  better  in  partial 
shade  than  when  exposed  to  the  sun's  full  glare. 

All  lily  bulbs  are  easily  damaged  by  careless 
exposure  or  direct  contact  with  manure.     But 
by  using  your  brains  you  can  have  glorious  suc- 
cess with  any  and  all  of  them.    "I  have  had  nine  / 
hundred  Madonna  blooms  in  a  single  bed  of  a  j 
dozen  feet  in   diameter,"   writes   Mr.   Powell;  ' 
"the  fragrance,  pure,  strong,  and  wholesome, 
filled  my  garden  and  shrubbery.    I  do  not  know 
of  anything  more  perfect  than  a  stalk  of  lilies 
three  or  four  feet  tall,  and  crowned  with  five  to 


1  See  Mrs.  Harding's  peony  book,  pp.  105-115.  Seedsmen  ought 
to  follow  her  example  in  indicating  the  relative  period  of  blooming. 
Also — and  this  is  very  important — the  seed  catalogues  should 
invariably  refer  to  the  fragrance  of  all  flowers  that  have  it. 


46        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         <V 

eight  blossoms,  each  six  inches  across,  and 
waving  perfume  like  a  censer." 

Waving  perfume  like  censers  are  also  the 
Lilium  longiflorum  giganteum,  or  Japanese 
Easter  lily;  the  gold-banded  auratum,  also 
from  Japan;  and  the  lily-of-the- valley,  the  little 
white  bells  of  which  seem  as  if  cast  of  condensed 
fragrance.  These  often  run  wild  in  shady 
places. 

It  is  odd  that  the  American  wild  lilies,  which 
are  so  wonderful  in  California  and  Arizona,  do 
not  do  so  well  in  our  gardens  as  those  that  have 
been  imported  from  Japan  and  China.  A  new 
lily,  myriophyllum,  brought  from  China  by 
E.  H.  Wilson,  is  featured  by  Vick;  its  perfume 
"reminds  one  of  jasmine." 

There  are  also  plenty  of  unscented  lilies; 
they  will  be  more  honored  when  some  plant 
breeder  has  perfumed  them.  "The  perfume  of 
the  flower  and  the  flavor  of  foods  are  nowadays 
receiving  more  attention  than  formerly,"  says 
Mr.  Burbank.  He  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  individual  lilies,  even  of  the  wild  species, 
vary,  some  having  a  really  delightful  fragrance, 
and  some  none  at  all.  This  gives  breeders  a 
chance  to  accentuate  the  perfume  in  crossing 
the  different  individuals  and  shows  how  our 
whole  flower  gardens  may  ultimately  be  made 
fragrant. 

Surely  there  can  be  no  more  interesting  sub- 
ject to  flower  lovers  than  this  creative  garden- 


•*?         CHOICE   GARDEN   FLOWERS       47 

ing  of  the  future.  The  time  will  come  when 
all  bouquets  will  be  nosegays — that  is,  bunches 
of  fragrant  flowers.  If  you  have  inherited  a 
Puritanical  strain  from  your  ancestors,  please 
bear  in  mind  that  floral  fragrance  not  only 
gives  a  sensual  pleasure  which  is  highly  refined 
and  harmless,  but  has  indeed  a  decided  hygienic 
value;  because  it  makes  us  breathe  deeply  and 
in  sniffs,  which  is  the  most  effective  way  to 
introduce  into  the  lungs  an  extra  amount  of 
health-giving  oxygen — about  one-third  more 
than  we  ordinarily  take  in.1 

Less  intensively  fragrant  than  the  lilies,  but 
far  more  varied  in  coloring,  are  the  members  of 
the  iris  family  ("rainbow  flowers"),  which  in- 
cludes, besides  the  iris  proper,  the  humble 
crocus,  the  tigridia  (of  which  some  wonderful 
hybrid  specimens  are  pictured  in  colors  in  Bur- 
bank's  tenth  volume) ,  and  the  glorious  gladiolus. 
If  you  have  room  in  your  garden,  and  time  to 
keep  out  the  weeds — especially  witch  grass — by 
all  means  have  some  Spanish  and  German 
irises.  Bigger  and  more  thrillingly  beautiful 
are  the  Japanese  irises,  than  which  nothing 
more  showy  exists.  These  are  obligatory.  You 


1  If  you  wish  to  realize  fully  what  that  extra  amount  of  oxygen 
means,  read  Thomas  R.  Gaines's  volume  on  Vitalic  Breathing 
(Chicago,  The  Reilly  and  Lee  Co.).  There  is  no  exaggeration  in  his 
claim  that  deep  breathing,  in  sniffs,  "arms  you  against  disease; 
prevents  bodily  fatigue  (in  spading  and  hoeing,  for  example);  oils 
up  your  mental  machine;  insures  physical  fitness;  and  arrests  pre- 
mature old  age." 


48        GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

don't  always  get  just  what  you  ordered,  even 
from  the  best  seedsmen,  and  yet  you  will  not 
be  disappointed,  so  superlatively  lovely  are  all 
these  flowers,  on  the  improvement  and  varie- 
gation of  which  the  most  flower-loving  nation 
in  the  world  has  spend  many  centuries.  Unlike 
the  Japanese  chrysanthemum,  of  which  the 
same  may  be  said,  the  Japanese  iris  is  perfectly 
hardy.  It  will  not  bloom  unless  freely  watered, 
yet  it  does  not  flourish  in  soil  which  is  habitually 
boggy,  though  it  loves  to  grow  along  brooks  and 
is  therefore  desirable  for  landscape  gardening. 

"If  the  gladiolus  were  perfume  giving,"  says 
E.  P.  Powell,  "it  would  be  the  ideal  flower  for 
country  cottages."  It  is  so,  anyway,  I  must 
inconsistently  confess.  Some  kinds  of  flowers 
are  showy  at  a  distance,  but  offer  no  subtle 
markings  or  tints  for  detailed  admiration.  Chry- 
santhemums and  asters  are  of  this  class;  so  are 
hollyhocks — of  which  you,  nevertheless,  ought 
to  have  a  row  among  your  hardy  perennials — 
golden  glow,  and  even  peonies.  But  the  glad- 
ioli! As  dazzling  at  a  distance  as  salvias — the 
cardinal  birds  among  flowers — they  are  at  the 
same  time  as  thrillingly  varied  in  subtle  tints 
and  stripes  and  blotches  as  pansies.  Indeed,  I 
know  a  man  who  told  me  he  was  going  to  give 
up  pansies  and  devote  himself  exclusively  to 
gladioli.  I  forgave  his  foolishness  because, 
really,  in  face  of  the  latest  gladioli,  with  the 
dazzling  modern  improvements,  anyone  might 


««         CHOICE  GARDEN  FLOWERS        49 

feel  tempted  at  times  to  swear  off  on  all  other 
garden  flowers.  And  that  in  spite  of  its  being 
unscented ! 

During  the  past  few  years  wonderful  new  combina- 
tions of  colors  and  shades  never  before  seen  in  any 
flower  except  tropical  orchids  have  appeared  in  bewil- 
dering variety  and  abundance,  so  that  it  is  no  longer 
possible  to  give  them  names,  for  the  tender  transparent 
orchid  shades  blend  in  endless  poems  of  color. 

So  writes  Luther  Burbank  of  the  gladiolus,  to 
the  improvement  of  which — after  many  other 
breeders  the  world  over  had  beautified  it  for 
nearly  a  century — he  gave  part  of  forty  years 
of  his  life.  He  has  had  in  his  California  gardens 

one  hundred  thousand  absolutely  new  varieties  of  about 
every  form  and  color  ever  produced  from  this  wonder- 
fully variable  plant,  including  scarlet,  crimson,  yellow, 
blue,  purple,  lavender,  orange,  salmon,  and  pink,  with 
infinitely  varied  combinations  of  rainbow  colors.  Such 
a  mass  of  various  brilliant  colors  cannot  be  produced  at 
many  times  the  cost  of  these  in  any  other  flower. 

Burbank's  eloquent  description  of  the  gladioli 
affects  one  like  the  climax  of  a  symphonic  poem 
played  by  full  orchestra  after  a  long  and  gradual 
crescendo.  Beyond  the  present-day  glorifica- 
tion of  this  rather  plain  flower  as  originally 
brought  from  South  Africa,  the  gardener's  art 
cannot  go,  except  in  the  matter  of  perfume. 

THE   MOST   ALLURING  OF  THE  ANNUALS 

Gladioli  are  a  sort  of  connecting  link  between 
perennials  and  annuals.  In  the  North  they  are, 


50        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         °$ 

unlike  most  other  bulbs,  planted  in  spring.  I 
have  had  them  winter  outdoors  in  Maine  and 
come  up  in  May,  but  not  so  perfect  as  the  first 
year,  and  it  is  best,  in  our  Northern  states,  to 
treat  them  as  annuals,  planting  them  every 
spring  in  a  new  place,  enriched  with  well-rotted 
stable  manure  or  commercial  sheep  manure. 

Annuals  are,  as  I  have  already  intimated, 
more  trouble  than  flowering  shrubs  or  climbers 
or  blossoms  grown  from  bulbs  and  perennial 
roots.  The  seeds  of  many  are  so  small  that, 
unless  spring  rains  are  frequent  and  the  soil 
rich,  failure  is  certain  unless  brain  and  brawn 
and  patience  are  freely  and  constantly  exercised. 
More  will  be  said  about  this  in  later  chapters. 

Another  difficulty  with  annuals  is  that  there 
are  so  many  kinds  to  claim  our  attention  that  the 
choice  becomes  a  very  puzzling  matter.  In  the 
chapter  on  "The  Fragrant  Soul  of  Flowers"  I 
shall  indicate  a  way  of  making  a  living  nose- 
gay of  your  whole  garden,  or  a  section  of  it. 
Verbenas,  pansies,  sweet  peas,  petunias,  stocks, 
wallflowers,  tuberoses,  schizanthuses,  nicotianas, 
heliotropes,  lemon  verbenas,  cornflowers,  clove 
pinks  or  carnations,  lupines,  marigolds,  are 
fragrant,  most  of  them  delightfully  so;  while 
among  those  which  have  no  agreeable  scent 
are  the  lovely  ground  roses  called  portulaccas, 
Chinese  pinks,  scabiosa,  kochias  or  Mexican  fire- ' 
bushes,  zinnias,  asters,  dahlias,  begonias,  anem- 
ones, cockscombs,  balsams,  cenotheras  (Bur- 


«        CHOICE   GARDEN   FLOWERS        51 

bank's  are  wonderfully  big  and  beautiful),  cos- 
moses (graceful  and  prettily  colored),  morning- 
glories,  and  so  on. 

Nearly  all  of  these,  both  scented  and  un- 
scented,  have  been  so  amazingly  varied  and 
beautified  that,  as  you  see  them  pictured  and 
read  about  them  in  the  seedsmen's  catalogues, 
you  feel  tempted  to  try  them  all.  And  why  not? 
"Why  not?"  you  echo.  "I  cannot  spend  all  my 
time  in  the  garden,  besides  employing  a  gar- 
dener or  two."  No  need  of  it.  You  can  sample 
and  enjoy  all  the  annuals  that  seem  worth 
while,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  and  without 
caring  for  more  than  one  long  flower  bed  at  a 
time. 

When  I  was  a  boy  my  sisters  and  their  friends 
used  to  have  crazy-quilt  parties,  and  I  suppose 
such  parties  are  still  in  vogue.  Each  girl 
brought  a  few  squares  of  silk  or  other  material, 
and  then  all  sat  around  the  wooden  frame  which 
held  the  quilt  and  sewed  their  contributions  on 
to  it.  Flower  beds  can  be  similarly  "quilted." 
Some  seedsmen  offer  packets  of  mixed  seeds  of 
garden  or  wild  flowers ;  but  if  you  have  an  extra 
dollar  to  spare  you  can  buy  separate  packets 
and  make  your  own  mixture,  shaking  it  well, 
like  a  medicine  bottle,  before  sowing.  Cosmoses, 
poppies  (Darwins,  Burbanks,  Shirleys,  and 
silver  lining),  marigolds,  mignonettes,  stocks, 
phloxes,  four-o'clocks,  heliotropes,  verbenas,  zin- 
nias, and  the  old-fashioned  cornflowers  or  bach- 


52        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *% 

elor's  buttons — suppose  you  make  a  crazy  quilt 
of  this  dozen  the  first  year.  The  next  season 
you  are  likely  to  want  whole  beds  of  some  of 
them,  particularly  verbenas  and  cosmoses.  I 
always  have  a  separate  bed  of  cornflowers 
around  the  stem  of  a  locust  tree.  They  seed 
themselves,  begin  to  bloom  before  any  other 
annual,  and,  if  given  a  few  handfuls  of  wood 
ashes  before  rain  or  an  occasional  shower  bath, 
will  bloom  four  or  five  months.  The  greedy 
tree  rootlets  do  not  kill  them.  I  have  known 
cornflowers  to  survive  several  decades  self-sown 
in  an  Oregon  apple  orchard.  They  are  patriotic, 
too,  with  their  red,  white,  and  blue  flowers. 
I  prefer  the  single  kind,  but  grow  also  the 
doubles  because  of  their  different  colors.  Corn- 
flowers have  an  agreeable  perfume,  but  it  is  so 
faint  that  it  probably  escapes  many  who  nose 
it.  It  would  be  easy  to  intensify  this  fragrance 
by  continuous  selection  of  the  sweetest  flowers 
for  seed.  Nothing  could  be  simpler.  In  view  of 
the  wide  popularity  of  cornflowers  it  would 
surely  pay  our  seedsmen  to  do  this  work. 
They  should  also  take  in  hand  the  "poor  man's 
orchid"  (schizanthus),  whose  quaint  blossoms, 
varying  from  blond  to  dark  brunette,  are  always 
in  my  garden.  They  are  seldom  fragrant,  but 
should  be  made  so. 

Of  course  you  will  have  the  equally  patriotic 
morning-glories  climbing  somewhere  in  your 
grounds.  These  will  do  well  anywhere — even  in 


*g         CHOICE   GARDEN   FLOWERS        53 

a  city  back  yard  which  gets  hardly  any  sun. 
Another  annual  climber  which  should  be  grown 
in  every  garden — especially  if  there  are  young 
children  in  the  family — is  the  ornamental  gourd. 
The  flowers  of  some  of  the  gourds  are  pretty, 
but  it  is  the  oddly  shaped  and  prettily  colored 
gourds  themselves  that  make  them  fascinating 
toys  for  children  of  all  ages.  Perhaps  the  four 
most  interesting  sorts  are  the  Japanese  nest  egg, 
the  mock  orange,  the  pear-shaped  (beautifully 
striped  green  and  yellow),  and  the  prettily 
marked  pomegranate  or  sweet  pocket  melon, 
which  is  as  aromatically  fragrant  as  a  vine- 
ripened  Honeydew  melon.  While  these  gourds 
are  warm-climate  climbers,  I  have  grown  them 
successfully  in  the  Maine  mountains.  We  use 
the  nest  eggs  in  the  henhouse,  and  the  ripe 
pomegranate  is  a  whole  nosegay  in  itself.  I 
always  carry  one  in  my  pocket  in  September. 
If  you  are  interested  in  ornamental  plants 
which  are  grown  for  their  beautifully  colored  and 
marked  leaves — such  as  coleus,  castor  bean,  ca- 
ladium,  and  heuchera,  ribbon  grass,  eulalia 
Japonica,  aloes,  agave,  Asparagus  Sprengeri, 
dracaena — don't  omit  to  add  Burbank's  Rainbow 
corn.  What  he  says  of  this  in  his  catalogue  is 
not  in  the  least  exaggerated:  "The  leaves  of 
this  beautiful  corn  are  variegated  with  bright 
crimson,  yellow,  white,  green,  rose,  and  bronze 
stripes.  A  really  wonderful  decorative  plant,  as 
easily  grown  as  any  common  corn  and  fully 


54        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

equal  in  beauty  to  the  most  expensive  green- 
house dracaenas."  I  always  have  a  row  of  these 
in  my  garden,  and  automobile  parties  have 
repeatedly  stopped  to  inquire  about  these  showy 
plants. 

I  value  the  Rainbow  corn  even  more  than  the 
Mexican  firebush  (kochia),  a  row  of  which,  green 
and  fluffy  during  the  summer,  does  indeed  look 
like  a  row  of  burning  bushes  in  September, 
when  the  millions  of  minute  flowers,  as  well  as 
the  small  leaves,  turn  a  fiery  red.  When  the 
setting  sun  illumines  my  kochiasi  I  almost  feel 
surprised  not  to  see  smoke  rising  from  them. 

Let  us  now  see  what  are  the  most  important 
things  needed  if  we  would  have  a  successful 
vegetable  or  flower  garden. 


HOW    TO   START 


CHAPTER  V. 
A  GARDEN 

HAVING   selected    and    purchased — the 
sooner  the  better — the  seeds   of  pre- 
ferred   flowers     and    vegetables,    the 
next   step    to   take,    long   before   the 
ground  can  be  tilled,  is  to  secure  a 
supply    of    necessary     garden     tools. 
Many  kinds  of  these  are  pictured  in  the  last 
pages  of  the  seed  catalogues  and  all  of  them 
have  their  uses.    Four  of  them  are  indispensable. 
Without  a  spade,  a  hoe,  a  trowel,  a  rake,  gar- 
dening is  impossible.     But  there  are  at  least 
four  more  implements  which  I  should  be  very 
sorry  not  to  have.    They  are: 

1.  A  three  (not  four)  pronged  hand  fork  like 
this.     This  is  often  more  handy  and  helpful  than 
a  trowel,  but  not  in  trans- 
planting,  for   which,  by  the 

way,  a  narrow  trowel  is  often 

more  useful  than  the  ordinary        Gem  Hand  Fork 

kind.    A  large  spading  fork  is 

often  preferable  to  a  spade  or  shovel.    Buy  one. 

2.  Very  useful  and  labor   saving  is   a  five- 

pronged    potato    hook 

(prong  hoe),  not  only  for 

'   digging  potatoes,  but  also 
as  a  substitute  for  spade, 
spading  fork,  or  shovel. 
If  your  garden  approxi- 
Prong  HOC  or  Potato  Hook    mates  half  an  acre,  much 


56        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         «« 

labor  can  be  saved  by  having  it  plowed  and 
harrowed  just  before  your  trees  leaf  out  in  spring. 
But  plowing  is  not  sufficient.  After  the  harrowing 
has  been  completed,  stake  off  the  rows  where  the 
peas,  beans,  corn,  etc.,  are  to  be  planted,  and 
loosen  the  soil  still  further  with  a  potato  hook, 
digging  down  to  a  depth  of  twelve  to  eighteen 
inches.  Spading  with  spade,  hoe,  or  fork  would 
do  the  job  equally  well,  but  would  be  much 
harder  work.  There  are  ways  of  plying  spades, 
forks,  and  hoes  of  all  kinds  which  are  much  less 
fatiguing  than  others.  Use  your  brains  and  you 
will  soon  discover  them.  And  don't  forget  the 
vitalic  breathing  referred  to  on  page  47.  It 
may  enable  you  to  do  without  an  assistant. 

3.  The  hoe  is  most  commonly  used  for  weed- 
ing, but  unless  it  is  used  simply  for  scraping  off 
the  young  weeds  with  their 
tiny  roots  it  is  apt  to  harm 
the  roots  of  your  crops. 
Hand  weeding  is  best,  if  the 
weeds  are  more  than  an  inch 
or  two  high.  It  is  easy  after 
a  rain  or  irrigation.  At  all 
times  it  is  greatly  facilitated 
by  using  any  one  or  all  of 
the  weeders  here  pictured. 
You  will  be  delighted  with 
them.  If  your  garden  is  far 
away  from  a  city  I  would 
Excelsior  Finger  advise  having  two  or  more  of 


Hazeltine's  Hand 


Eureka  Weeder 


'??        HOW  TO  START  A  GARDEN       57 

each  of  these  hand  tools.  They  are  small 
and  easily  lost.  Make  a  strict  rule  to  al- 
ways put  them  back  where  you  expect  to  find 
them. 

4.  A  sprinkler,  or  watering  pot,  is  convenient 
even  if  you  have  a  hose  and  plenty  of  water, 
because  often  it  takes  much  less  time  to  carry 
a  pot  of  water  than  to  drag  the  hose  to  a  remote 
corner  where  only  a  little  water  is  wanted. 
Revolving  or  stationary  sprinklers  of  another 
kind — meaning  the  metal  end  pieces  that  are 
attached  to  garden  hose  for  letting  the  water 
come  out  in  a  fine  spray  and  thus  creating  an 
artificial  rain — are  great  time  savers.  To  be 
sure,  they  share  with  rain  the  disadvantage  of 
causing  the  soil  to  bake  when  the  hot  sun  hits 
it.  For  best  results  this  top  crust  should  be 
broken  up  after  every  rain  or  watering,  to  let 
in  the  air  which  the  roots  need  almost  as  much 
as  the  leaves  do. 

A  rake  is  better  and  quicker  for  breaking 
this  crust  (which  should  be  completely  pulver- 
ized) because  it  isn't  so  apt  to  injure  the  near- 
surface  roots  as  a  hoe  is.  In  flower  beds  where 
the  plants  are  too  close  together  to  permit  the 
use  of  a  rake,  the  "Excelsior  finger"  is  most 
useful  for  pulverizing  the  top  crust.  You  will 
need  it  even  if  you  are  willing  to  use  the  best  of  all 
cultivators — your  own  fingers.  Of  course,  hand 
weeding  and  cultivating  is  too  slow  work  except 
in  flower  beds  or  small  gardens. 


58  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  « 
In  large  gardens  much  time  and  labor  can  be 
saved  by  adding  to  your  supply  of  garden  tools 
a  wheel  hoe.  Use  it  at  once  to  remove  the  new 
crop  of  weeds  that  comes  up  after  every  rain. 
It  has  been  truly  said  that,  without  exaggera- 
tion, "80  per  cent  of  the  work  in  taking  care  of 
gardens  is  due  to  the  fact  that  these  hoeings 
and  hand  weedings  are  allowed  to  go  for  several 
days  after  they  should  have  been  attended  to"; 
which  is  simply  an  illustration  of  the  old  adage 
that  a  stitch  in  time  saves  nine.  Gardening 
with  brains  saves  brawn. 

A  hundred  or  more  broad  garden  sticks, 
eight  or  ten  inches  high,  for  marking  your  rows 
of  vegetables  or  flower  beds  are  very  desirable; 
and  don't  forget  to  write  on  each  stick  with 
blue  pencil  the  name  of  each  variety  and  the  date 
of  planting  it.  (The  rows  should  run  north  to 
south.)  You  will  also  need  a  number  of  green 
stakes  five  or  six  feet  long  for  your  asparagus 
plants,  if  you  have  any,  and  for  tomato  plants, 
which  you  surely  will  have.  In  the  North,  to 
make  sure  of  timely  ripening,  tomato  plants 
should  be  a  foot  tall  and  starting  to  blossom 
when  you  transplant  them,  and  they  need  a 
stake  at  once.  For  tying  material  I  much 
prefer  unbleached  muslin  torn  into  thin  strips 
to  twine,  which  cuts  into  the  stems,  or  raffia, 
which  rots  in  rainy  weather.  You  will,  of 
course,  need  a  garden  line  or  a  ball  of  twine  to 
make  your  rows  of  vegetables  straight.  Strag- 


^        HOW  TO  START  A  GARDEN       59 

gling,  crooked  rows  do  not  look  well,  besides 
being  harder  to  cultivate. 

A  wheelbarrow,  a  sickle,  a  lawn  mower,  an 
asparagus  knife,  are  likely  to  be  wanted,  and  so 
is  a  pair  of  rubber  boots  to  wear  when  watering 
or  when  the  dew  is  heavy  on  the  grass.  Have  a 
rubber  coat,  too,  and  a  rubber  hat,  if  you  wish 
the  best  results  in  transplanting,  which  should 
always  be  done  while  it  rains,  unless  it  rains  so 
hard  as  to  turn  dirt  into  mud. 

In  choosing  a  site  for  your  garden,  if  the 
water  stands  on  it  all  day  after  a  rain,  have 
tiles  put  in  for  drainage,  or  select  another  plot 
slightly  inclined.  A  slight  slope  toward  the 
southeast  is  the  ideal  garden  spot;  vegetables 
ripen  a  week  sooner  in  such  a  sunny  exposure 
and  are  less  likely  to  be  killed  or  damaged  by 
late  spring  or  early  autumn  frosts.  See  Chapter 
VII  for  further  details  on  this  point. 

Almost  any  soil  can  be  adapted  to  the  growing 
of  flowers  or  vegetables,  provided  there  is  suffi- 
cient plant  food,  or  humus.  This  is  a  matter  of 
tremendous  importance  to  which  I  shall  devote 
several  pages  in  Chapter  VI.  Read  them  two 
or  three  times,  ponder  and  obey,  and  you  can- 
not fail  to  have  a  successful  garden.  With 
humus — and  brains — miracles  can  be  achieved. 

So  far,  all's  well.  You  have  the  seeds  you 
want  and  the  tools  you  need.  You  have  se- 
lected the  spot  and  enriched  it  with  humus  if  it 
needed  any.  Now»  how  about  sowing  the  seeds 


60        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

and  caring  for  them?  Concerning  this  you  will 
find  hints  in  the  chapter  on  poppies  and  on 
other  pages,  but  a  brief  summary  is  in  place 
here.  Sweet  peas,  pansies,  poppies,  cornflowers, 
phlox  are  among  the  hardy  popular  flowers 
which  may  be  planted  in  the  beds  outdoors  as 
soon  as  the  soil  can  be  made  ready.  Nor  will 
beets,  onions,  spinach,  radishes,  cabbage,  tur- 
nips, chard,  lettuce,  or  carrots  suffer  from  late 
frosts.  Wrinkled  peas  (the  only  kinds  fit  for 
epicures),  salsify,  kohl-rabi,  cauliflower,  can 
follow  soon  thereafter — say,  when  the  pear  and 
peach  trees  bloom;  but  it  is  wise  to  wait  for  the 
apple  blossoms  before  putting  in  the  ground  the 
seeds  of  corn  (see  Index),  cucumbers,  beans, 
okra,  pumpkins,  squash,  melons. 

Rake  the  top  soil  till  it  is  fine.  With  a  stick 
make  slight  depressions,  sow  the  seeds  thinly, 
sift  a  little  fine  dirt  over  them,  and  then  press 
it  down  firmly  with  a  shingle.  If  showers  are 
frequent,  nothing  more  is  necessary.  But  to 
make  sure  of  your  seeds  coming  up,  cover  the 
ground,  after  they  are  in,  with  burlap  (held  in 
place  by  stones)  and  peep  under  it  once  or 
twice  a  day.  If  the  surface  soil  shows  signs  of 
drying  out,  water  it  with  a  sprinkler  without 
removing  the  burlap.  Watch  carefully  for  the 
seedling  plants;  some  come  up  in  five  days; 
others  take  a  week,  two  weeks,  or  even  a  month 
or  fifty  days  (passion  flower);  but  don't  lose 
patience;  you  will  have  your  reward — if  you 


«        HOW  TO  START  A  GARDEN       61 

don't  let  the  baby  plants  die  for  lack  of  water! 
In  warm,  damp  weather  all  seeds  germinate 
several  days  sooner  than  when  it  is  cold. 

The  most  difficult  thing  to  teach  beginners  is 
thinning.  I  confess  that  to  this  day,  after  half 
a  century's  gardening  experience,  I  sometimes 
make  a  fool  of  myself  by  sowing  too  many  seeds 
and  hesitating  afterward  to  pull  out  most  of 
them  before  they  are  an  inch  high.  Nobody 
knows  better  that  if  they  grow  larger  they 
become  spindling  or  consumptive  looking  and 
unable  later  on  to  bear  large  flowers;  yet  it 
seems  so  cruel  to  kill  all  these  healthy  young 
plants,  each  of  which,  if  left  to  live,  would  prove 
a  source  of  daily  delight  for  weeks,  that — well, 
you  must  be  ruthless  or  you  had  better  quit 
gardening;  that's  all. 

In  pulling  out  crowded  plants,  be  very  careful 
not  to  disturb  the  roots  of  those  that  remain, 
especially  in  the  case  of  poppies.  Do  your 
thinning  on  cloudy  days,  if  possible,  or  late  in 
the  afternoon.  Ordinary  weeding,  on  the  other 
hand,  especially  when  the  hoe  is  used  to  scratch 
off  hundreds  of  plants,  is  most  effective  if  done 
early  on  a  hot  sunny  day.  That  makes  the 
weeds  wilt  and  unable  to  gain  a  new  roothold. 

In  a  later  chapter  I  shall  speak  of  the  weed 
sorrel  as  an  indication  that  the  soil  needs  lime. 
In  my  Maine  garden  I  have  never  needed  lime, 
but  that  may  be  because  the  soil  is  light  and 
sandy  and  I  use  for  most  crops  wood  ashes, 

5 


62        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

which  also  correct  soil  acidity.  If  you  wish  to 
know  whether  your  soil  needs  lime,  get  a  piece 
of  blue  litmus  paper  in  a  drug  store,  insert  one 
end  of  it  in  a  tumbler  of  water  thickened  with 
dirt  from  your  garden,  and  leave  it  for  an  hour. 
If  your  soil  is  acid  the  litmus  paper  will  be 
intensely  red.  Lime  is  not  a  fertilizer  in  itself, 
but  it  makes  inert  plant  foods  in  the  soil  more 
easily  available. 

To  protect  tender  young  plants  from  frost 
cover  them  on  evenings  when  the  thermometer 
falls  rapidly  with  burlap  or  with  newspapers 
held  in  place  with  stones.  A  smudge  is  less 
sure,  and  to  make  one  you  will  have  to  get  up 
before  the  sun.  It's  the  first  rays  of  the  sun 
that  kill.  See  Chapter  VII. 

To  protect  your  whole  yard  against  cats  and 
dogs  and  poultry,  some  sort  of  fence  is  neces- 
sary. The  cheapest  is  chicken  wire.  Shrubs  or 
hedge  fences  are  better  looking  but  less  reliable; 
but  there  are  many  kinds  of  ornamental  fences. 
Concerning  these  and  cold  frames  and  green- 
houses and  garden  furniture  and  bungalow 
summer  gardens,  window  and  porch  plants,  and 
rock  gardens  I  must  refer  the  reader  to  The 
Garden  Guide,  an  excellent  little  book  crammed 
with  facts,  published  by  A.  I.  De  La  Mare  Co., 
New  York. 


CHAPTER  VI.  BRAINS,  BRAINS, 
AND  MORE  BRAINS 

WHEN  Rossini  was  asked  what  were 
the  most  important  three  requi- 
sites  for   a   singer,  he  promptly 
answered,    "Voice,    voice,    and 
voice."     If  I  were  asked  what 
are   the   most   necessary    things 
for  a  gardener,  I  would  answer,  "Brains,  brains, 
and  brains."     It  takes  infinitely  more  intelli- 
gence and  knowledge  to  be  a  successful  gardener 
than  to  be  a  popular  singer  of  the  kind  Rossini 
had  in  mind. 

It  is  all  very  well  for  a  poet  to  talk  about 
tickling  the  soil  with  a  hoe  and  making  it  laugh 
with  a  crop,  but  if  you  think  it's  as  simple  as 
that,  try  it  and  you  will  have  the  biggest  sur- 
prise of  your  life  coming  to  you. 

Most  gardens  are  too  tired  to  laugh  when 
simply  tickled  with  a  hoe.  They  need  food 
and  stimulants  to  brace  up  on — humus  and 
phosphates  and  nitrates  and  potash  and  more 
humus.  If  your  fertilizer  contains  10  per  cent 
of  potash  you  can  raise  as  many  pounds  of  po- 
tatoes on  half  an  acre  or  less  as  you  can  without 
potash  on  a  whole  acre.  Think  of  the  value  of 
such  knowledge! 

If  you  consider  sulphate  of  potash  too  expen- 
sive, burn  hard  wood  and  save  the  ashes,  or 
buy  them  by  the  barrel ;  they  contain  from  6  to 
7  per  cent  of  potash  and  are  therefore  more 


64        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

valuable  for  potatoes  and  other  crops  that  dote 
on  this  chemical  than  most  of  the  commercial 
fertilizers. 

TECHNIC   OF  GARDENING 

Was  I  right  in  saying  a  gardener  must  know 
a  thing  or  two?  What  I  have  said  is  onfy  a 
sample  of  the  tremendous  advantage  a  man  who 
knows  has  in  the  garden  over  an  ignoramus. 
It  must  be  big  knowledge,  too;  a  little  knowl- 
edge is  a  dangerous  thing.  If,  for  instance, 
knowing  how  ashes  help  your  potatoes  and  car- 
rots and  beets  and  oyster  plants,  you  apply 
them  to  your  lettuce  bed,  you'll  ruin  it;  the 
plants,  instead  of  heading,  will  go  to  seed  and 
quit.  What  they  need  is  not  the  starch-and- 
sugar-producing  potash,  but  a  chemical  which 
promotes  leaf  growth,  like  nitrate  of  soda, 
which,  however,  must  be  applied  very  carefully, 
so  as  not  to  burn  the  roots  and  leaves;  or, 
better  still,  the  rather  expensive  ammonium 
nitrate,  "probably  the  fastest  fertilizer  we  shall 
ever  have." 

Tickle  the  soil  with  a  hoe,  indeed!  Most 
farmers  do  just  about  that  in  their  gardens,  and 
that's  why  they  seldom  have  any  vegetables, 
or  any  that  are  fit  to  eat.  Instead  of  first 
tickling  the  soil,  let  me  tell  you  what  I  do  in 
my  garden.  After  it  has  been  plowed  and  the 
old  stable  manure  harrowed  in,  I  put  in  garden 
sticks  to  mark  the  vegetables  I  want  to  raise 


^        BRAINS  AND   MORE  BRAINS       65 

in  the  successive  rows,  taking  care  that  the  corn 
and  potatoes  and  peas  and  other  crops  change 
places  from  year  to  year.  Then  I  get  a  pretty 
farmerette  or  two — a  product  of  the  war  which 
almost  makes  one  reconciled  to  it — or  else  a 
mere  man,  to  help  me  do  the  rest;  and,  mind 
you,  every  detail,  however  trifling  it  may  seem, 
is  of  imperative  importance. 

Gardening  is  a  good  deal  like  piano  playing. 
The  hands  are  important,  but  the  brain  must 
guide  them  every  second,  and  the  feet  are 
needed  for  the  finest  results.  The  pedal  has 
been  called  the  soul  of  the  pianoforte,  and  from 
a  tonal  point  of  view  it  is.  Pressing  the  right- 
foot  pedal  raises  the  felt  dampers  from  the 
strings,  the  result  being  that  when  you  hit  one 
key — say,  C — you  hear  not  only  that  tone,  but 
a  dozen  others  through  sympathetic  vibration, 
all  of  them  blended  into  a  rich,  juicy  tone  which 
the  hands  alone  could  never  produce. 

Juicy  vegetables  are  as  dependent  on  the 
co-operation  of  the  feet  as  juicy  piano  tones. 
Read  Luther  Burbank's  chapter  on  "The  All- 
importance  of  Water,"  in  Vol.  VII  of  his  Meth- 
ods and  Discoveries.  "The  richest  soil  that 
was  ever  prepared  would  not  grow  a  single  blade 
of  grass  or  the  tiniest  weed  if  that  soil  were  abso- 
lutely dry."  There  are  rain,  to  be  sure,  and 
irrigation,  but  these  are  not  always  available 
when  needed.  It  is  the  baby  plants  that  most 
need  water;  they  need  it  every  second,  and  the 


66        GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

way  to  make  sure  of  it  is  to  tread  the  soil  firmly 
after  the  fertilizer  has  been  thoroughly  mixed 
with  the  soil  in  the  furrow,  and  again,  more 
gently,  after  the  seeds  have  been  put  in  and 
covered  the  right  depth. 

BE  A  GAMBLER 

Peter  Henderson  was  so  impressed  by  the 
importance  of  the  use  of  the  feet  in  gardening 
that  he  wrote  a  special  circular  on  the  subject. 

Of  course,  if  you  are  satisfied  with  coarse, 
tough,  stringy  vegetables,  such  as  most  people 
live  on,  you  needn't  attend  to  these  details; 
but  I  am  writing  as  an  epicure  for  epicures. 
In  a  later  chapter  I  shall  try  to  determine  just 
what  kind  of  an  animal  an  epicure  is. 

To  be  a  successful  gardener  one  must  not 
only  have  brains  and  be  a  foot  man  as  well  as 
hand  laborer,  but  one  must  also  be  a  gambler. 
The  trouble  with  most  of  our  farmers  and  gar- 
deners is  that  they  are  afraid  to  take  chances. 
During  the  two  summers  we  spent  on  Mark 
Twain's  place  at  Redding,  Connecticut,  our 
nearest  neighbor  was  an  Englishwoman,  Mrs. 
St.  Maur,  who  used  her  brains  in  gardening; 
in  fact,  she  wrote  a  book,  and  a  good  one,  on 
gardening.  She  was  a  gambler,  too,  not  afraid 
to  brave  the  dangers  of  late  frosts,  and  the  result 
was  that  she  was  usually  eating  juicy  vege- 
tables two  or  three  weeks  before  others. 

That  has  always  been  my  way.     What  if  a 


<£        BRAINS  AND   MORE   BRAINS       67 

crop  is  lost  once  in  a  while?  It  is  easy  to  replant, 
and  I  always  keep  an  abundant  supply  of  seeds. 
To  be  sure,  it  is  often  said  that  children  who  are 
not  sent  to  school  till  they  are  seven  or  eight 
promptly  catch  up  with  those  who  begin  a  year 
or  two  sooner,  and  the  same  claim  is  made  for 
young  plants.  There  is  a  good  deal  in  this — 
there  are  two  sides  to  all  things — but  on  the 
whole  it  has  been  my  experience  that  it 
pays  a  gardener  to  be  a  gambler,  sowing  the 
seeds  recklessly  as  soon  as  the  ground  can  be 
worked. 

Luther  Burbank  began  his  career  as  a  horti- 
cultural plunger.  He  knew  that  the  early  gar- 
dener catches  the  rich  customer;  and  often  he 
has  put  a  hundred  thousand  seeds  in  the  ground, 
vaguely  hoping  that  one  of  them  may  grow 
into  the  particular  plant  he  had  in  mind.  The 
perfect  gardener  not  only  has  brains.  He  is  a 
genius,  a  creative  artist.  Of  this  more  will  be 
said  later. 

HUMUS,   LEAF   MOLD,   AND  FERTILIZERS 

If  the  widow  referred  to  in  the  Preface  had 
used  her  brain  it  ought  to  have  told  her  that  it 
was  as  absurd  to  expect  the  plants  in  her  garden 
to  get  along  without  enrichment  of  the  soil  as 
it  would  be  to  expect  her  children  to  grov^  up 
without  their  daily  food  and  drink.  Plants 
need  a  great  deal  less  than  humans,  but  what 
they  do  need  they  need  badly. 


68        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

Some  gardeners  are  so  lucky  as  to  have  soil 
so  rich  in  humus  and  chemical  elements  as  to 
need — for  some  years,  at  any  rate — little  or  no 
plant  food.  Many  other  gardens  do  their  duty 
thoroughly  if  they  are  enriched  once  a  year  with 
plenty  of  stable  manure.  But,  thanks  to  auto- 
mobiles and  farm  tractors,  stable  manure  is 
becoming  more  and  more  difficult  to  buy  and 
the  cost  is  excessive. 

The  very  important  question  thus  confronts 
the  gardener,  "Where  can  I  get  food  for  my 
plants?" 

The  answer  is,  from  humus  and  chemicals. 
The  chemical  food  you  can  get  from  the  seeds- 
men. Most  of  them  offer,  by  the  pound  or 
hundred  pounds,  general  manures  useful  for 
vegetables  and  flowers;  and  if  they  are  up-to- 
date  they  will  inform  the  readers  of  their  cata- 
logues what  particular  varieties  their  several 
kinds  of  manure  are  good  for.  They  also  offer 
the  nitrates,  phosphates,  and  potash  compounds 
separately,  and  you  will  find  it  extremely  inter- 
esting to  study  up  this  matter  thoroughly,  and 
ultimately  make  your  own  mixtures.  French's 
book,  to  which  I  referred  in  the  chapter  on 
"Vegetables  We  Should  Grow  Ourselves,"  gives 
sufficient  details  for  most  purposes. 

You  will  soon  be  likely  to  have  in  your  wood- 
shed a  bag  of  nitrate  of  soda  to  accelerate  the 
growth  of  plants  grown  for  their  leaves,  like 
lettuce,  cabbage,  and  spinach  (peas  and  beans 


*»        BRAINS  AND  MORE  BRAINS       69 

gather  their  own  nitrogen  from  the  air);  a  bag 
of  the  phosphatic  and  safe  bone  meal  for  corn 
and  most  other  crops,  as  well  as  for  bulbs  and 
perennials  in  particular.  And  you  certainly, 
if  you  are  wise,  will  have  a  large  bag  of  pulver- 
ized sheep  manure,  which  comes  nearer  than 
anything  to  atoning  for  the  dropping  out  of  the 
stable  manure.  Unlike  many  of  the  chemical 
fertilizers  when  used  ignorantly,  it  does  not  burn 
tender  roots  or  sprouting  seeds  or  leaves.  It 
certainly  is,  as  James  Vick  claims,  "the  best 
fertilizer  for  the  lawn,  garden,  greenhouse,  and 
conservatory." 

A  friend  of  mine  who  lives  near  Philadelphia 
told  me  the  other  day  that  his  soil  is  so  hard 
that  in  some  places  he  has  to  use  chisel  and 
hammer  on  it,  and  he  wasn't  joking.  That  soil 
needs,  above  all  things,  humus,  humus,  and 
more  humus.  Humus  is  also  what  light,  sandy 
soil  needs  most,  of  all  things,  for  sandy  soil 
easily  dries  out  under  the  hot  sun  and  there  is 
nothing  like  humus  for  retaining  moisture, 
which  it  holds  "like  a  sponge." 

You  want  to  know,  I  feel  pretty  sure,  just 
what  humus  is.  I  don't  blame  you  for  not 
knowing;  dictionaries  used  by  millions  do  not 
include  the  word.  But  I  have  before  me  a 
book,  The  American  Educator  (invaluable  to 
parents  who  wish  to  help  to  enlighten  their 
children),  which  explains  the  word  so  tersely 
that  I  will  cite  its  definition: 


70        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         «8? 

Humus — vegetable  matter  in  a  state  of  decomposi- 
tion. Humus  is  rich  in  nitrogen,  the  material  out  of 
which  the  gluten  in  grains  is  produced,  and  it  helps  to 
conserve  moisture  in  the  soil  and  also  improves  its  tex- 
ture. Air  space  in  the  earth  increases  with  the  amount 
of  humus.  It  may  be  added  to  the  soil  by  the  plowing 
under  of  green  crops  and  by  the  application  of  barnyard 


Excellent  so  far  as  it  goes;  but  the  writer 
left  out  two  very  important  sources  of  humus — 
leaf  mold  and  vegetable  refuse  in  the  garden 
which  is  piled  into  a  compost  heap  and  allowed 
to  rot.  This  should  not  include  such  things  as 
potato  and  pea  vines,  which  may  harbor  disease 
germs.  These  should  be  burned.  The  leaf 
mold  is  to  be  found  several  inches — sometimes 
many  feet — deep  in  boggy  places  shaded  by  trees. 
If  you  have  no  bog  you  surely  have  a  dozen  or 
more  trees  which  in  autumn  shed  their  millions 
of  leaves.  Rake  these  into  a  pile,  wet  it,  tread 
it  down  hard,  put  some  turf  over  it,  or  dirt  to 
keep  the  leaves  from  blowing  away,  and  the 
following  year  you  will  have  a  pile  of  leaf  mold 
that  will  make  a  manure  richer  than  any  other 
in  humus.  Mix  it  with  the  soil  so  it  will  be 
under  the  seeds  you  sow. 

GREEN   MANURING 

For  small  gardens  leaf  mold  and  compost 
heaps  are  the  best  sources  of  the  necessary 
humus.  For  gardens  large  enough  to  be  plowed, 
green  manuring  is  the  manuring  of  the  future 


^        BRAINS  AND   MORE   BRAINS       71 

in  this  increasingly  stable-manureless  age.  It 
consists  in  plowing  under  a  crop  specially  grown 
for  this  purpose.  Various  crops  are  used,  but, 
as  you  want  plenty  of  nitrogen  in  your  soil,  it 
is  well  to  choose  a  clover  for  the  South  and  hairy 
vetch  for  the  Northern  states;  the  vetch  is  so 
hardy  that  it  does  not  winterkill  even  though 
buried  for  months  under  ice  and  snow;  nor  does 
it  mind  drought  in  the  fall,  when  it  is  still  young 
(having  been  sown  in  August).  William  C. 
Smith  says  of  it: 

Vetch  is  the  best  green-manuring  crop  because  it 
stores  more  nitrogen  in  the  soil  than  cowpeas,  soy  beans, 
alfalfa,  or  any  other  legume.  Its  root  system  is  so  exten- 
sive that  it  completely  fills  the  soil  with  its  hairlike 
roots  for  a  depth  of  six  or  more  inches.  It  produces  a 
vast  amount  of  forage  which,  when  plowed  under  (in 
spring),  rots  quickly  and  does  not  interfere  with  culti- 
vation. This  heavy  mass  of  organic  matter  turned 
under  never  dries  out  the  soil,  but  holds  moisture  even 
in  the  driest  of  seasons.1 

If  your  garden  is  large  enough,  put  vetch  in 
half  of  it  one  year  and  on  the  other  half  the 
following  year ;  then  you  will  not  need  to  bother 
about  stable  manure  or  other  sources  of  humus; 
but  you  will  still  need  chemical  fertilizers  in 
moderation  for  quick  and  large  crops.  It  is 
best  to  use  twenty-five  pounds  of  vetch  seed  to 
the  acre  mixed  with  a  bushel  of  rye  seed.  The 

1  Country  Gentleman,  July  19,  1919.  Read  also  Farmers' 
Bulletin  515,  Vetches.  Get  your  seed  of  a  reliable  dealer;  it  is 
often  adulterated  and  useless. 


72        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

rye  supports  the  vetch  and  makes  the  plowing 
easier. 

The  problem  of  watering  is  much  simplified 
by  thus  putting  plenty  of  humus  into  your  soil. 
Still,  the  humus  alone  will  not  do  it;  nor  will 
the  hoe.  Shallow  hoeing  after  a  rain,  to  break 
up  the  crust  and  create  a  dust  mulch,  is  very 
important;  but  the  long  vines  of  peas  and  pota- 
toes and  tomatoes,  the  stalks  of  corn,  and  the 
leaves  of  carrots  and  beets  and  turnips,  absorb 
and  dissipate  an  enormous  amount  of  moisture, 
in  spite  of  hoe  and  mulch.  This  moisture  has 
to  be  replaced  by  judicious  and  frequent  water- 
ing. Salad  plants,  in  dry  weather,  should  be 
watered  daily,  for  if  there  is  a  check  in  their 
growth  they  bolt  and  go  to  seed.  That  means 
much  work;  but  the  greens  are  worth  it,  not 
only  because  they  make  delicious  salads,  but 
because,  more  than  any  other  plants,  they 
abound  in  health-giving  vitamines,  or,  rather, 
mineral  salts;  for  Alfred  W.  McCann  has  ex- 
ploded the  vitamine  theory. 

GETTING  STRENGTH  FROM  GREENS 

My  neighbor  in  Maine  has  in  his  barn  a  bull 
— a  magnificent  specimen  of  bovine  physique 
and  strength.  That  animal  lives  all  the  year 
on  hay  and  water.  Elephants  live  on  greens 
and  water.  They  are  as  strong  as  meat-eating 
lions — and  I  would  bet  on  that  bull  in  a  fight 
with  a  lion.  Water  and  greens,  fresh  or  dried, 


*«        BRAINS   AND   MORE   BRAINS       73 

that's  all!    Green  food  is  as  important  for  us  as 
for  the  garden. 

The  Italian  laboring  man  is  noted  the  world 
over  for  his  strength  and  endurance.  Like  the 
elephant  and  the  bull,  he  lives  largely  on  greens 
— salads  and  other  vegetables  raised  in  his  gar- 
den. It  is  from  those  greens  that  he  gets  his 
strength.  They  are  full  of  the  food  salts  which 
are  essential  for  growth  and  repair.  Try,  for 
lunch,  a  small  but  solid  head  of  lettuce  with 
salt.  In  a  few  hours  you  will  feel  those  vitamines 
in  your  veins  like  exhilarating  wine,  and  you'll 
crave  more  the  next  day. 


CHAPTER    VII.       WHEN    VEGE- 
TABLES  GET   PNEUMONIA 

"W  DO  wish  I  could  raise  a  crop  of  potatoes 

I  or  beans  once  in  three  years,  anyway!" 

It  was  in  the  frigid  Grafton  Notch,  near 

I  the  foot  of  Mount  Speckle,  that  I  heard 

[  this  pathetic   remark  from  the  lips  of  a 

farmer  whose  garden,  as  on  so  many  other 

occasions,  had  been  ruined  by  an  August  frost, 

a  sad  spectacle  for  the  autoists  passing  it  on  the 

way  to  or  from  the  Rangeley  Lakes. 

"Usually  we  have  a  frost  here  every  month 
in  the  year,"  he  said,  "but  once  in  a  while  a 
merciful  fog  saves  our  crops. 

"I  have  no  ambition,"  he  continued,  "to  raise 
pineapples  and  figs  and  bananas,  but  I  do  think 
it  is  hard  on  the  poor  farmer  that  most  of  the 
things  we  need  most  and  like  best  are  easily 
killed  by  the  slightest  frost — potatoes,  beans, 
cucumbers,  squashes,  pumpkins,  tomatoes,  and 
corn.  There  is  nothing  equal  to  the  sweet  corn 
or  the  potatoes  raised  near  the  Maine  moun- 
tains, but  if  you  try  it  you  are  likely  to  raise 
Cain." 

Being  an  unlearned  man,  he  attributed  his 
loss  to  the  fact  that  his  beans  and  potatoes  got 
too  cold  in  the  early  morning  and  died  of 
pneumonia. 

Now,  plants  do  die  of  what  you  might  call 
pneumonia,  but,  strange  to  say,  the  cold  isn't 
what  makes  them  die.  Many  a  time  I  have 


°£  GARDEN   PNEUMONIA  75 

seen  my  vegetables  and  flowers  at  five  in  the 
morning  frozen  stiff  as  icicles,  but  an  hour  or 
two  later  every  one  of  them  came  out  of  its 
Arctic  stupor  smilingly  and  continued  to  revel 
in  the  luxury  of  living. 

JACK   FROST   IS   INNOCENT 

The  sun  does  the  mischief,  when  mischief  is 
done.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  he  is  the 
true  inwardness  of  frost.  Far  be  it  from  me  to 
speak  disrespectfully  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
but  I  must  say  that  in  this  matter  of  frost  the 
sun  behaves  disgracefully.  He  is  worse  than 
any  I.  W.  W. — infinitely  worse,  being  a  perpetra- 
tor of  sabotage  on  a  cosmic  scale.  Every 
autumn  he  destroys  the  world's  gardens  one 
morning  in  September  or  October,  and  then 
smiles  benignly  and  whispers,  "Don't  you  love 
me  for  the  pleasant  warmth  I  diffuse?" 

Most  people  hold  Jack  Frost  responsible,  but 
Jack  is  not  the  naughty  boy  at  all.  He  might 
say  truthfully:  "I  cannot  tell  a  lie.  The  sun 
did  it."  It  is  the  rays  of  the  rising  sun  falling 
on  the  frozen  plants  that  make  them  wilt. 
Why  this  is  so  I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  know 
if  anybody  knows.  But  I  remember  how,  as  a 
boy,  I  used  to  help  my  father  and  brother  make 
smudges  to  keep  the  rising  sun  from  "freezing" 
the  precious  apple  blossoms  in  our  Oregon 
orchard.  The  apple  trees  themselves  are,  as 
you  know,  hardy;  they  prosper  even  in  Grafton 


76        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

Notch,  although  some  are  winterkilled  when  the 
ground  freezes  two  feet  deep  or  more  before 
there  has  been  a  protective  snowfall.  One 
recent  winter  the  thermometer  hereabouts  was 
twenty  below  zero  before  snow  came.  That's 
what  killed  my  pansies  and  irises  and  most  of 
our  bulbs;  nay,  to  our  amazement,  we  found 
that  even  the  hardy  red  and  white  clover  every- 
where on  our  place  was  temporarily  put  out  of 
business. 

PROTECTING   FOG 

So  far  as  frost  is  concerned,  our  garden  is 
fortunately  situated.  It  has  a  southeastern 
exposure,  which  is  considered  the  best,  especially 
when  it  slopes  a  little,  as  ours  does.  What  is 
more  important  still,  the  Androscoggin  makes  a 
curve  around  our  place,  and  on  frosty  mornings 
that  river  usually  supplies  a  dense  rescuing  cur- 
tain of  fog,  which  allows  the  plants  to  thaw 
out  before  the  sun  gets  a  chance  to  stab  them 
with  his  rays.  Usually,  I  say,  and  to  that  we 
owe  the  fact  that  our  corn  and  cucumbers  are 
sometimes  saved  when  families  that  are  not  so 
near  the  river  suffer  disaster.  But  once  in  a 
while  the  fog  is  too  slow,  and  then — but  we  are 
not  to  be  caught  napping! 

One  summer  there  was  a  frost  late  in  June 
which  ruined  most  of  the  corn  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. Ours  was  saved  because  we  all,  including 
our  farmerette  friends,  got  up  at  four  o'clock 
and  covered  the  young  corn  plants,  which  were 


*$  GARDEN  PNEUMONIA  77 

six  inches  high,  with  newspapers,  with  the  result 
that  we  enjoyed  a  sweet-corn  season  of  seven 
weeks  and  two  days — a  thing  unprecedented  in 
this  region.  The  best  newspaper  for  this  pur- 
pose— as  well  as  some  others — is  the  London 
Times.  That  year  I  brought  up  about  fifty 
copies  of  it  for  protecting  frozen  corn  from  the 
deadly  sun. 

Sometimes  the  moon  aids  and  abets  the  sun 
in  its  ruthless  crop  sabotage.  I  know  that 
Professor  Humphreys  of  the  United  States 
Weather  Bureau  is  inclined  to  think  the  moon 
has  no  influence  on  the  weather.  Maybe  it 
hasn't,  but  I  know  that  it  helps  to  aggravate 
frost.  Weather  proverbs  like,  "Moonlight  nights 
have  the  heaviest  frosts"  and  "Clear  moon, 
frost  soon,"  prove  that  the  pernicious  activity 
of  our  satellite  was  discovered  long  ago.  Every 
experienced  gardener  and  farmer  dreads  full 
moon  late  in  spring  and  early  in  the  autumn. 
Clear  nights  increase  the  formation  of  dew,  but 
what  I  cannot  understand  is  why  frost  on  moon- 
lit nights  kills  at  a  higher  temperature  than  on 
other  nights.  It  seems  pure  cussedness  on  the 
moon's  part. 

THE  DEVILISH  WITCH  GRASS 

There  is  one  form  of  vegetation  which  the 
combined  efforts  of  moon  and  sun  cannot  kill, 
and  that  is  witch  grass,  also  known  as  devil 
grass  and  by  a  dozen  other  characteristic  names. 

6 


78        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         °£ 

I  have  often  denounced  this  vegetable  mos- 
quito, as  it  might  be  called,  but  it  continues  to 
multiply  and  flourish  just  as  if  I  had  never  said 
a  word  against  it.  It  is  the  chief  cause  of 
deserted  farms,  for  it  makes  tilling  the  soil  ten 
times  as  hard.  I  am  not  exaggerating. 

During  the  war  I  read  a  little  story  about  a 
score  of  American  soldiers  who,  seeing  a  broken- 
down  French  peasant  trying  to  till  his  field  after 
the  Teutonic  devastation,  came  to  his  aid  with 
their  trenching  implements.  I  wish  I  could  hire 
twoscore  soldiers  to  spend  a  week  cleaning  out 
the  tangled  witch-grass  roots  in  my  half-acre 
garden.  Plows,  harrows,  hoes,  forks,  rakes, 
combs,  and  sieves  would  be  needed — but  would 
they  do  the  job?  Can  witch  grass  be  killed? 
It  recalls  the  man  in  one  of  Mozart's  operas  who 
was  condemned  to  be  beheaded,  then  hung,  then 
impaled  on  hot  stakes  and  finally  flayed  alive. 

However,  do  not  despair.  There  are  ways  of 
killing  witch  grass.  If  you  will  send  five  cents 
(not  in  stamps)  to  the  Superintendent  of  Docu- 
ments at  Washington  for  Farmers'  Bulletin 
No.  279  he  will  mail  you  a  pamphlet  entitled 
A  Method  of  Eradicating  Johnson  Grass. 
In  it  you  will  learn — and  see  it  proved  by 
photographs — that  witch  grass  has  not  one 
rootstock  only,  like  decent  plants,  but  three — 
the  primary,  the  secondary,  and  the  tertiary; 
and  that  the  tertiary  ones  sometimes — horribile 
dictu! — penetrate  to  a  depth  of  four  feet — 


^  GARDEN   PNEUMONIA  79 

hinc  illes  lacrymae — that's  why  you  weep  in 
struggling  with  them.  But  if  you  will  burden 
your  brain  with  all  the  details  set  forth  in  this 
Bulletin  you  will  be  able  to  conquer  the  octopus. 

Turn  the  land  infested  with  this  pest  into 
meadow  or  pasture  and  keep  the  grass  closely 
cropped,  either  by  grazing  animals  upon  it  or 
by  mowing  it  for  one  or  more  seasons.  After  a 
year,  the  land  "should  be  plowed  shallow,  and 
the  subsequent  cultivation  should  be  intelli- 
gently and  efficiently  done."  But  if  you  let  any 
of  the  grass  go  to  seed  in  a  fence  corner,  woe  unto 
you! 

If  your  garden  is  too  small  to  be  plowed,  you 
may  try  a  method  I  have  found  effective. 
Spread  newspapers  thickly  over  the  space  you 
wish  to  rescue  and  put  boards  over  them.  In 
less  than  a  year  the  grass  underneath  will  be 
dead;  even  witch  grass  cannot  live  without 
air — it  suffocates.  Nor  can  it  live  unless  some 
of  its  blades  are  allowed  to  grow  undisturbed. 
If  you  will,  therefore,  go  over  your  garden  with 
a  sharp  hoe  once  a  week  and  slaughter  every 
blade  as  soon  as  it  shows  itself,  you  will  ulti- 
mately make  the  rootstocks,  tertiary  as  well  as 
secondary  and  primary,  curl  up  and  die  miser- 
ably. At  least,  that  joyful  tragedy  has  been 
triumphantly  enacted  in  my  garden. 


CHAPTER  VIII.  MALE  vs.  FEMALE 
ASPARAGUS   PLANTS 

THERE  is  another  plant  besides  witch 
grass    that    frost    never    kills;     its 
name  is  asparagus.    Have  you  ever 
eaten    it    fresh    from    the    garden? 
No?     Then  you  don't  know  what 
asparagus   is.      We    were   planning 
our  twelfth  trip  to  Europe  a  few  summers  ago, 
but  the  thought  that  our  new  asparagus  bed 
would  be  in  full  blast  made  us  hesitate.    Few 
people  have  asparagus  beds,  chiefly,  it  is  as- 
sumed,   because   it   takes  three   years    to    get 
results.    But   there   are   other  reasons.     Hav- 
ing had  no  experience  with  this  vegetable,  I 
ignorantly    assigned    the    asparagus    patch    to 
my   wife    as   an  easy   job.     But  here  is  her 
report: 

How  I  wish  I  could  start  afresh  with  my  present 
experience  and  do  it  differently!  From  the  very  begin- 
ning it  was  exciting — and  generally  dismaying.  We 
planted  the  seed  after  a  long  soaking,  and  then  came 
days  of  waiting.  No  asparagus.  At  last  we  gave  up 
all  hope  and  left  the  bed  to  its  own  devices,  when,  like 
magic,  up  sprang  a  forest  of  tiny  green  needles.  In  a 
few  weeks  each  determined  little  plant  had  grown  a 
wee  crown,  and  then  thinning  out  meant  rooting  up 
with  the  aid  of  a  trowel. 

If  you  haven't  unlimited  time,  patience,  and  strength 
of  mind,  don't  try  to  grow  asparagus  from  seed,  in  spite 
of  the  advice  of  experts  who  have  proved  that  it  is  the 
best  thing  to  do  by  far.  I  had  the  first  two  requisites, 


1?         GENDERS  AND  ASPARAGUS        81 

but  not  the  third.  I  couldn't  pull  up  beautiful,  healthy 
seedlings.  Moreover,  according  to  the  experts,  again, 
seven-eighths  of  the  seedlings  are  worthless,  the  other 
fraction  being  recognizable  by  the  straightness  and 
height  of  the  plants.  This  was  an  eagerly  seized  excuse 
for  putting  off  the  evil  day  of  thinning  out.  No  inex- 
perienced grower  realizes  what  is  ahead  of  him.  End- 
less hours  I  crawled  along  the  rows,  trying  to  decide 
which  thirty  or  forty  were  to  be  saved  out  of  those 
250-odd  babies,  which  all  looked  alike  to  me.  This 
gave  the  wee  green  things  another  respite,  but  finally 
the  day  of  uprooting  came.  The  ground  was  strewn 
with  feathery  green,  in  spite  of  the  passionate  intensity 
which  each  little  asparagus  had  developed  in  clinging 
to  its  job.  If  I  had  only  known  then  what  the  next 
year's  tragedy  would  be,  and  the  next  after  that!  With 
intense  pride  I  regarded  each  enlarging  clump;  I  felt 
that  no  one  else  had  ever  grown  such  asparagus  in  one 
season. 

The  second  summer  I  began  to  have  suspicions.  The 
dark-green  feathery  plants  were  a  joy  to  look  at  and  a 
picture  of  dazzling  beauty  when  covered  with  rain  or 
dew,  but  the  clumps  were  amazing  in  size,  too  amazing. 
I  began  to  dig  cautiously,  then  recklessly.  Enormous 
roots  were  torn  off  ruthlessly.  My  worst  fears  were 
confirmed.  My  seedlings  were  busy  strangling  one 
another.  All  the  finest  seemed  to  grow  right  together, 
which  meant  endless  sacrifices.  How  easy  the  tearing 
out  of  the  small  seedlings  now  appeared!  To  wrench  out 
those  splendid  great  plants  was  dreadful. 

The  following  year  it  was  worse.  Most  of  my  plants 
showed  too  many  stalks  of  too  many  sizes,  which  meant 
interlocked  crowns.  Nearly  all  had  to  come  up  and  be 
replanted.  If  I  had  only  sent  to  a  grower  for  plants  how 
happy  I  should  be,  and  yet — no,  I  should  never  have  the 
personal  affection  for  any  professional  asparagus  plants 


82        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *» 

that  I  have  for  those  personally  conducted  foster  chil- 
dren that  have  cost  me  such  hours  of  toil  and  regrets. 

WASTING   ENERGY   ON   BERRIES 

After  this  report  was  written  and  printed  we 
discovered  a  further  cause  for  dismay.  One  of 
the  two  little  books  on  asparagus  growing  we 
bought  called  our  attention  to  the  fact  that 
female  plants  yield  only  half  as  many  edible 
stalks  as  the  male  plants,  because  they  use  up 
their  energy  in  forming  countless  berries  full  of 
little  seeds.  The  seeds  we  bought  must  have 
been  strongly  inoculated  with  feminism,  for 
considerably  more  than  one-half  of  our  plants 
were  found  to  be  of  the  fair  sex,  their  graceful, 
feathery  leaves  being  ornamented  with  millions 
of  berries.  Kind  friends  who  were  visiting  us 
helped  to  pick  off  a  bushel  or  two  of  these  (to 
us)  useless,  aggravating  things,  but  finally  we 
gave  it  up  in  despair,  deciding  that  all  the 
females  must  be  ruthlessly  slaughtered. 

This  was  easy  enough  so  far  as  the  old  plants 
were  concerned;  but  what  were  we  to  put  in 
their  places?  It  is  not  till  the  second  summer, 
when  the  berries  appear,  that  an  asparagus 
plant  betrays  its  sex.  So  we  had  to  start  a  new 
bed  of  seedlings  and  wait  patiently  for  certified 
plants  of  the  male  persuasion  to  put  into  the 
places  of  the  massacred  females. 

To  be  sure,  we  might  have  bought  one-year- 
old  plants  from  the  seedsmen,  thus  saving  a 


«         GENDERS  AND  ASPARAGUS         83 

year;  but  we  would  not  have  known  the  sex 
of  these  yearlings,  either,  and  half  of  them 
would  have  had  to  be  pulled  out  again.  The 
seedsmen  also  offer  two-year-old  and  three-year- 
old  plants;  but  none  of  the  catalogues  I  have 
ever  seen  speaks  of  the  sex  of  the  plants  offered 
for  sale,  although  purchasers,  if  enlightened  on 
this  matter,  would  gladly  pay  a  fancy  price  for 
guaranteed  male  plants.  But  wait  a  minute! 
Let  us  use  our  brains  "real  hard." 

Buyers  still  further  enlightened  will  abso- 
lutely refuse  to  order  two-year-  or  three-year- 
old  plants  of  either  sex,  for  it  is  one  of  the  most 
singular  things  about  this  very  singular  vege- 
table that,  while  it  is  easily  transplanted  at  any 
age,  the  younger  the  plants  are  when  trans- 
planted the  larger  the  crops  will  be  in  future 
years.  This  fact  was  established  by  a  famous 
French  specialist,  M.  Godefroid-Leboeuf,  whose 
careful  experiments  showed  that  a  plantation 
made  with  plants  a  year  old  produced  double 
that  of  the  one  where  two-year-old  plants  were 
used,  and  nearly  treble  that  made  with  plants 
three  years  old! 

So  there  you  are!  After  all,  it  seems  best  to 
raise  your  own  asparagus  from  seed,  which 
method  is  more  and  more  coming  to  the  fore. 
If  you  are  interested  in  all  the  details  of  aspara- 
gus culture  you  may  get  for  a  small  sum  a  special 
booklet  by  Hexamer  and  another  by  Barnes 
and  Robinson.  But  you  will  not  need  these  if 


84        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

you  will  carefully  heed  the  information  I  am 
giving  in  this  chapter.  Allen  French  devotes 
twenty  useful  pages  of  his  Book  of  Vegetables 
to  asparagus,  but  he  does  not  refer  to  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  exterminating  all  female  plants. 
Unless  that  is  done,  no  lasting  success  is  pos- 
sible. It  is  chiefly  because  they  don't  know  that, 
that  most  farmers  and  commuters  have  no 
asparagus  beds  in  their  gardens. 

For  the  most  valuable  advice  we  are  indebted 
to  Prof.  J.  C.  Whitten  of  the  Missouri  Experi- 
ment Station.  It  was  he  who  advised  sowing 
liberally  and  discarding  seven-eighths  of  the 
seedlings. 

When  the  seedlings  are  three  inches  high  [he  says] 
select  those  which  have  the  thickest,  fleshiest,  and  most 
numerous  stems,  and  pot  them.  They  vary  more  than 
almost  any  other  vegetable.  Many  that  appear  large 
and  vigorous  will  have  broad,  flat,  twisted,  or  corrugated 
stems.  Discard  them.  Beware  also  of  those  that  put 
out  leaves  close  to  the  soil.  These  will  all  make  tough, 
stringy,  undesirable  plants.  The  best  plants  are  those 
which  are  cylindrical,  smooth,  and  free  from  ridges. 
They  shoot  up  rapidly  and  attain  a  height  of  two  inches 
before  leaves  are  put  out.  They  look  much  like  smooth 
needles.  The  matter  of  selecting  the  best  plants  for 
potting  and  subsequent  planting  out  is  of  the  greatest 
importance  in  asparagus  culture. 

Another  extremely  important  hint,  which 
alone  is  worth  ten  times  the  price  of  Hexamer's 
book,  from  which  I  have  quoted  the  foregoing 


*S?  GENDERS  AND  ASPARAGUS  85 
paragraph,  is  that  plants  started  in  February  in 
the  greenhouse  and  transplanted  to  the  garden 
in  May  "reach  as  good  size  in  one  year  as  the 
nursery-grown  plants  usually  do  in  three  years." 

Few  people,  as  I  have  said,  have  asparagus 
beds,  chiefly,  it  is  assumed,  because  it  takes 
three  years  to  get  results.  But  there  are  other 
reasons.  Some  of  these  reasons  the  reader  of 
these  pages  now  knows.  There  are  others  still. 
Is  it  a  wonder  that  so  many  asparagus  beds,  on 
which  no  one  has  bestowed  his  best  brain  power, 
are  plowed  down  as  useless  at  a  time  when  they 
should  be  at  their  best?  An  asparagus  bed, 
richly  fed  from  year  to  year,  should  last  at 
least  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

Is  it  a  wonder  that  asparagus  is  expensive? 
Yet,  so  alluring  is  its  flavor,  so  irresistible  its 
appeal  to  the  appetite,  that  people  eagerly  pay 
fancy  prices  for  bunches  of  desiccated  stalks 
that  have  been  shipped  three  thousand  miles 
and  then  left  criminally  exposed  to  the  glare  of 
the  drying,  juice-sucking  sun  several  days  longer 
by  the  stupid  corner  grocers.  If  such  a  bunch  is 
worth  fifty  cents,  then  asparagus  eaten  an  hour 
after  it  is  cut,  and  retaining  all  its  juices  and 
ravishing  flavor,  is  worth  five  dollars. 

MAKES  US  HORRIBLY  SELFISH 

The  only  objection  I  can  see  to  that  kind  of 
asparagus  is  that  it  makes  the  men  and  women 
who  raise  it  horribly  selfish.  Even  those  who 


86        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

gladly  give  of  their  other  vegetables,  or  their 
fruits  or  berries,  to  esteemed  neighbors,  balk 
when  it  comes  to  asparagus.  That's  too  good 
to  share  with  others! 

Surely,  if  you  have  room,  and  plenty  of  water 
for  sprinkling,  you  will  want  to  raise  a  vegetable 
so  superlatively  good  that  it  destroys,  in  the 
best  of  us,  the  altruism  which  has  been  such  a 
slow  and  wonderful  product  of  civilization! 
Make  up  your  mind  to  have  an  asparagus  patch, 
and  if,  in  starting  it,  you  will  bear  in  mind  five 
things,  you  cannot  fail: 

1.  Make  the  soil  very  rich  at  the  start;   and 
every  spring,  after  you  stop  cutting  the  stalks 
for  the  table,  dump  a  liberal  supply  of  hen,  sheep, 
or  cow  manure,  besides  wood  ashes,  bone  meal, 
nitrate  of  soda,  etc.,  on  the  surface.    The  rain 
or  your  automatic  sprinkler  will  do  the  rest. 
Scrape  or  pull  out  weeds  whenever  they  are  an 
inch  high,  but  do  not  hoe  deeper  than  one  inch. 
Spare  the  roots  near  the  surface;    there  are 
millions  of  them. 

2.  Get   your   seeds   from   a   reputable   firm. 
There  are  many  good  varieties.     Why  not  be 
patriotic  and  try  the  best  American,  which  is 
Burbank's,  besides  the  best  French,  known  as 
Argenteuil,  and  Barr's  Mammoth,  which  is  the 
best  English? 

3.  Plant  the  seeds  at  least  six  inches  apart 
lest  a  shower  wash  two  seeds  so  close  together 
that  you  leave  them  as  one,  with  strangling 


^         GENDERS  AND  ASPARAGUS        87 

results.  Keep  the  ground  moist,  as  the  seeds 
are  slow  to  germinate;  soak  them  a  day  or  two 
before  sowing. 

4.  Now  use  your  brains  very  hard.  When  the 
plants  are  about  six  inches  high  dig  out  with  a 
trowel  very  carefully  (lest  you  leave  part  of  a 
crown  in  the  ground)  all  those  which  have 
broad,  flat,  twisted,  or  corrugated  stems,  or 
put  out  leaves  close  to  the  soil.  (If  you  have 
planted  only  the  very  choicest  seeds  you  will 
probably  find  fewer  of  these  bad  plants  than 
Professor  Whitten  did;  at  least,  that  has  been 
my  experience.)  Throw  away  all  these  undesir- 
able seedlings  in  a  place  where  they  cannot 
possibly  grow.  Then  take  out  with  your  trowel 
still  more  carefully  (so  as  to  leave  all  the  roots 
undisturbed,  which  is  easiest  just  after  they 
have  been  thoroughly  watered)  all  the  good 
plants  except  those  which  are  three  or  four 
feet  apart  and  can,  therefore,  be  left  perman- 
ently. Find  deeply  spaded  and  richly  manured 
places  for  the  good  plants  you  take  out  with 
your  trowel  (if  the  plants  are  very  luxuriant  a 
small  shovel  is  preferable),  transplant  them  into 
these,  and  water  at  once.  I  believe  that  the 
reason  why  commercial  one-year-  and  two-year- 
old  roots  yield  less  than  seedlings  that  are  left 
where  they  were  sowed,  is  that  when  plants  are 
sent  by  mail  or  express  the  thousands  of  tiny 
rootlets  which  are  left  behind  in  the  discarded 
soil  are  never  fully  replaced.  Transplanting 


88        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

your  own  seedlings  in  the  way  I  have  just 
indicated  obviates  this  disadvantage. 

5.  At  least  one-half  of  the  plants  you  have 
thus  transferred  or  left  in  permanent  positions 
will  prove  during  the  second  summer  to  be 
females,  and  will,  therefore,  have  to  be  dug  out 
as  soon  as  they  betray  their  sex.  An  infernal 
nuisance,  you  think,  and  right  you  are;  but  it 
is  the  only  way  to  have  a  permanent  asparagus 
bed  that  will  not  commit  suicide  by  root  stran- 
gling. Put  certified  male  roots  in  the  places  of 
the  ousted  females  and  then  your  troubles  will 
be  over  as  long  as  your  asparagus  bed  lasts, 
which  may  be  thirty  or  forty  years. 

If  you  ask  me  what  to  do  with  the  discarded 
female  plants,  I  answer  as  the  man  did  who, 
when  away  from  home,  got  a  telegram  reading: 

'  'Your  mother-in-law  has  died.  Shall  we 
embalm,  cremate,  or  bury  her?" 

He  promptly  wired  back:  "Embalm,  cremate, 
and  bury  her.  Take  no  chances." 

But  hold  on!  Your  troubles  may,  after  all, 
not  be  over  yet.  Like  all  other  plants  (read 
the  next  chapter),  the  asparagus  has  insect  and 
other  enemies  which  you  may  have  to  fight. 
In  fact,  they  may  undo  all  your  brain  and 
brawn  work  and  rout  you  as  completely  as  if 
they  were  generaled  by  a  Foch. 

Many  an  old  bed  has  been  destroyed  by  a 
fungus  disease  or  blight  known  as  rust.  Fre- 
quent sprayings  with  Bordeaux  mixture  help 


«         GENDERS  AND  ASPARAGUS        89 

to  keep  it  in  check,  but  prevention  is  far  better 
than  cure.  It  has  been  found  that  the  rust  is 
most  likely  to  occur  in  dry  soil  (and  the  best 
asparagus  soil,  being  gravelly,  easily  gets  too 
dry).  Therefore,  give  your  bed  a  good  soaking 
at  least  twice  a  week  in  hot  weather.  More- 
over, plants  grown  from  your  own  seed  and  kept 
well  fertilized  will  withstand  the  rust  fungus 
much  better  than  neglected  plants — an  addi- 
tional reason  for  taking  the  best  care  of  your 
asparagus  patch. 

There  are  also  insect  enemies,  the  commonest 
and  most  dreaded  of  which  is  known  as  the 
asparagus  beetle.  These  beetles  and  their 
grubs  injure  the  tender  shoots  which  you  want 
to  eat  yourself,  and  also  strip  the  leaves  off  the 
plants.  Arsenites  or  hellebore  mixed  with  flour 
can  be  dusted  on,  except  during  the  cutting 
season.  Chickens  eat  the  bugs  and  larvae 
eagerly.  If  you  have  none  to  turn  in,  collect 
in  your  vegetable  garden  all  the  ladybirds  you 
can  find  and  put  them  on  your  asparagus  plants. 
I  shall  have  more  to  say  about  these  adorable 
bugs  in  Chapter  X,  after  telling  in  the  following 
pages  about  some  other  garden  pests  which  make 
gardening  with  brains  a  necessity. 


CHAPTER    IX.     ON    THE    WAR- 
PATH  IN   THE   GARDEN 

ONCE  upon  a  time  a  prize  was 
offered  at  a  social  gathering  for 
the  most  outrageous  lie.  It  was 
awarded  to  the  man  who  said, 
"There  are  no  mosquitoes  in  New 
Jersey." 

If  I  should  say,  "There  were  no  Colorado  beetles 
in  my  potato  patch  last  year,"  every  reader  who 
has  ever  had  a  vegetable  garden  would  cry  out 
that  I  deserve  the  first  prize.  But  it  is  prac- 
tically true.  In  six  long  rows  in  two  weeks  I 
found  no  more  than  two  dozen  potato  bugs! 
The  preceding  year,  in  the  same  number  of  days, 
I  took  over  six  hundred  of  these  fellows  off  thirty 
hills  that  had  been  planted  a  little  early  to  serve 
as  decoys,  and  the  total  number  of  potato  bugs 
we  gathered  in  tomato  cans  and  burned  (yes, 
burned  alive,  and  gleefully)  amounted  to  several 
thousand. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  the  killing  of  a 
single  Colorado  beetle  before  it  has  laid  its  eggs 
on  the  leaves  saves  the  trouble  of  slaughtering 
a  thousand  of  its  progeny  later  on.  A  thousand 
times  a  thousand  is  a  million,  and  we  killed 
several  thousand — that  is,  several  potential 
millions !  Against  this  rapacious  enemy  a  potato 
plant  has  about  as  much  chance  as  a  lamb  would 
have  if  it  met  a  family  of  wolves  in  the  forest. 
I  can  imagine  no  more  gruesome  sight  in  nature 


•«         ENEMIES   IN   THE   GARDEN        91 

than  a  neglected  potato  field,  all  the  leaves 
devoured  and  nothing  left  but  the  bare  stems. 
Were  it  not  for  the  lucky  fact  that  arsenic  is  as 
deadly  to  bugs  as  to  human  beings,  the  potato 
would  have  been  extinct  decades  ago.  A  middle- 
aged  woman  told  me  that  when  she  was  a  little 
girl  her  father  used  to  give  her  a  nickel  for  every 
quart  of  these  beetles,  so  they  must  have  been 
as  abundant  then  as  they  are  now.1 

ROSE  BUGS  AND   GRAPE  BLOSSOMS 

Next  to  the  potato  beetles  the  rose  bugs  are 
perhaps  the  greatest  of  insect  -nuisances  in  the 
garden.  With  the  possible  exception  of  the 
hideous  green  worms  which  eat  their  way  right 
through  the  lovely  buds,  they  are  the  chief 
enemy  of  the  rose.  While  no  flower  or  leaf 
comes  amiss,  they  seem  to  prefer  fragrant 
blossoms,  such  as  the  gloriously  colored  and 
deliciously  scented  rose  peonies.  They  are  also 
specially  fond  of  wild-grape  blossoms,  the  scent 
of  which  is  as  voluptuous  as  that  of  the  rose  or 
peony.  I  shall  never  forget  the  thrills  of  delight 
that  overpowered  me  one  night  in  the  Grand 

1  The  habit  of  using  separately  Paris  green  to  kill  potato  beetles 
and  Bordeaux  mixture  to  prevent  blight  is  being  superseded  by 
spraying  (or  dusting,  which  is  cheaper  and  easier),  with  liquids  or 
powders  which  do  both  of  these  jobs  at  once.  Begin  early  and  keep 
it  up  late.  "Most  people  do  not  spray  late  enough,"  writes  Philip 
S.  Rose  in  the  Country  Gentleman.  "The  last  few  weeks  of 
growth  make  the  big  yields."  He  mentions  one  case  where  the 
yield  was  increased  from  2,000  bushels  to  3,700  by  a  late  spraying; 
which,  he  adds,  "looks  like  good  pay  for  a  few  hours'  work." 


92         GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         °£ 

Canon  of  Arizona,  halfway  down  to  the  Colorado 
River,  when  our  camp  was  surrounded  by  a 
tangle  of  wild  grapes  in  full  bloom. 

A  similar  tangle  surrounds  a  huge  bowlder 
(possibly  deposited  by  a  Mount  Washington  gla- 
cier a  million  years  ago — quien  sabe?)  which  is 
one  of  the  chief  ornaments  of  my  present  summer 
home.  Its  fragrance  is  at  this  moment  wafted 
to  the  window  at  which  I  write.  The  rose  bugs 
have  always  eaten  its  blossoms  ravenously,  and 
to  this  we  have  been  attributing  the  fact  that 
we  never  have  any  wild  grapes  for  preserving 
as  we  did  in  such  abundance  on  Mark  Twain's 
estate  in  Redding,  Connecticut  (those  which 
used  to  grow  along  the  banks  of  the  Andros- 
coggin  seem  to  have  been  winterkilled),  but  the 
experts  of  the  nearest  government  experiment 
station  inform  me  that  I  can  expect  no  grapes 
from  such  a  tangle  of  vines.  Perhaps,  they 
tell  me,  if  we  cut  down  the  vines  and  started 
fresh  we  might  get  some  grapes.  But  we  prefer 
the  abundance  of  fragrant  blossoms  even  to 
wild-grape  jelly;  so  that  settles  it. 

If  you  are  troubled  by  squash  bugs  exercise 
on  them  the  Lucrezia  Borgian  fine  art  of  mixing 
hellebore  with  flour  and  dusting  it  on  the  young 
plants.  Strange  what  a  passion  all  these  pesti- 
lential creatures  have  for  completely  extermin- 
ating what  they  like  best.  A  farmer  once  told 
me  he  had  just  replanted  his  cucumbers  and 
pumpkins  for  the  third  time.  He  apparently 


"8?         ENEMIES   IN   THE   GARDEN        93 

knew   naught    about   hellebore,    or   pyrox,    or 
other  methods  of  making  war  on  garden  bugs. 

HOSTS  OF   GARDEN   HUNS 

It  is  passing  strange  that  every  species  of 
plants  we  value  seems  to  have  its  private  and 
particular  enemy.  Stranger  still  that  this  enemy 
always  finds  them,  though  they  may  be  many 
miles  from  where  the  nearest  plants  they  dote 
on  have  been  raised  before.  I  really  believe 
that  if  a  ship's  captain  planted  chemically  puri- 
fied potatoes,  rose  bushes,  or  squash  seeds  on  an 
uninhabited  coral  island,  the  Colorado,  rose, 
and  squash  beetles  would  be  on  deck  as  soon  as 
the  plants  were  ready  to  be  exterminated. 
Prussians  couldn't  beat  them. 

The  number  of  garden  Huns  is  startling.  Corn 
alone  has  more  than  two  hundred  enemies,  to 
many  of  which  it  would  succumb  did  it  not 
have  as  its  ally  an  expert  poisoner.  What  poi- 
sons to  get  for  his  crops,  when  and  how  to 
apply  them — these  are  among  the  multitudinous 
things  a  gardener  must  know. 

He  must  be  a  plant  doctor,  too.  Plant  dis- 
eases are  as  numerous  as  the  sucking,  cutting, 
devouring  enemies.  Nearly  every  agricultural 
college  in  the  country  has  courses  in  plant 
pathology,  but  there  are  not  enough  graduates 
to  constitute  a  separate  profession,  so  the  gar- 
dener has  to  do  the  best  he  can,  just  as  he  does 
in  case  of  illness  in  the  family  if  no  doctor  is  nigh. 


94        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         «« 

The  government  looks  after  the  farmer,  and 
in  case  of  plant  epidemic  in  the  wheat  field  or 
orchard  does  what  it  can  to  check  them.  But 
the  flower  gardener  usually  has  to  shift  for  him- 
self. A  good  beginning,  however,  has  recently 
been  made  in  his  behalf.  For  example,  when 
Mrs.  Edward  Harding  three  years  ago  brought 
out  her  delightful  and  gorgeously  illustrated 
de  luxe  volume  on  peonies  she  added  a  chapter 
on  their  diseases — seven  were  known  at  that 
time,  and  Professor  Whetzel  of  Ithaca  was 
on  the  lookout  for  others  and  their  cure;  while 
Doctor  Taubenhaus  of  Texas  has  devoted  the 
greater  part  of  his  valuable  book  The  Culture 
and  Diseases  of  the  Sweet  Pea,  to  the  diseases 
which  have  caused  so  much  sorrow  among  disap- 
pointed lovers  of  this  exquisitely  fragrant 
favorite. 

GRASSHOPPERS,  WOODCHUCKS,  CROWS,  AND  CATS 

After  all,  ordinary  plant  enemies  and  diseases 
seem  insignificant  compared  with  such  devastat- 
ing hosts  as  the  grasshoppers  which  gardeners 
and  farmers  are  sometimes  called  upon  to  fight 
— flocks  of  insects  which  in  a  day  or  two  eat 
up  everything  green  in  sight.  One  summer 
North  Dakota  spent  $600,000  on  the  warpath 
against  grasshoppers.  In  Maine — at  least  in 
Oxford  County — they  are  usually  scarce — hardly 
enough  to  supply  bait  for  fishing;  but  one 
summer  we  had  a  regular  visitation  of  them. 


"8?         ENEMIES   IN  THE  GARDEN        95 

I  put  hens  in  the  garden;  but  instead  of  eating 
the  hoppers  they  scratched  out  some  of  my  best 
plants. 

A  number  of  times  daily  I  chased  them  out 
of  the  garden  with  brush.  My  friends  said  I 
presented  a  funny  sight  in  doing  this,  and  no 
doubt  they  were  right.  What  was  particularly 
annoying  was  that  these  hoppers  preferred  the 
glorious  blossoms  of  my  imported  Japanese  iris 
plants  to  everything  else  in  the  garden!  When 
I  put  cheesecloth  around  them  they  ate  through 
it  and  got  the  blossoms  all  the  same!  The  only 
way  we  could  get  our  share  of  the  iris  flowers 
was  by  cutting  the  stems  with  the  buds  and  let- 
ting them  open  in  the  house. 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  have  felt  some  professional 
sympathy  with  these  floral  epicures  because  of 
their  good  taste;  but  I  didn't,  any  more  than  I 
have  felt  with  cutworms,  though  they,  too, 
eat  only  the  daintiest  young  plants.  With 
them  and  other  garden  visitors  of  their  kind  I 
must  forever  remain  on  a  war  footing.  Let  me 
name  but  two  more  of  them,  epicures  both,  the 
"cornivorous"  crow  and  the  festive  woodchuck. 

Thanks  to  Laddie,  I  have  never  had  any 
trouble  with  woodchucks.  One  summer  he 
killed  fourteen,  mostly  with  my  aid,  he  on  one 
side  of  the  stone  fence,  I  on  the  other,  removing 
the  stones  one  by  one;  or  else  digging  them  out 
of  their  tunnels,  I  with  a  spade,  he  with  his 
paws.  Less  fortunate  are  gardeners  who  have 


96        GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *» 

no  dogs.  Mrs.  Julian  Hawthorne  once  told  me 
at  Redding  how  she  had  invited  her  friends  to 
share  with  her  next  day  a  delicious  crop  of 
young  pod  beans.  During  the  night  a  wood- 
chuck  epicure  ate  them  all  up. 

That  crows  are  epicures  they  prove  by  pulling 
up  the  corn  just  after  it  has  sprouted.  Do  they 
know  what  Chinese  cooks  knew  long  ago  (while 
we  have  just  found  it  out),  that  by  sprouting 
grains  before  we  eat  them  we  greatly  increase 
the  amount  of  precious  food  salts  in  them? 
Maybe;  but  all  the  same  I  don't  sympathize 
with  crows.  Once  they  dug  up  a  whole  row  of 
my  earliest  Golden  Bantam  corn.  I  set  a  crow 
trap  and  caught — Silverheels!  Toward  morning 
I  heard  feline  cries  of  distress.  I  got  up  and 
found  our  pet  pussy  in  the  trap,  fortunately  not 
badly  hurt. 

Gardeners  really  ought  not  to  have  cats,  for 
birds  eat  thousands  of  injurious  insect  pests 
and  a  country  cat  devours  two  hundred  birds 
a  year!  To  be  sure,  cats  also  eat  field  mice  and 
the  very  injurious  moles. 

Silverheels  was  more  like  a  dog  than  like  a 
cat.  Nearly  every  day  he  accompanied  us  on 
our  walk  in  the  woods.  He  meowed  woefully  if 
we  went  too  far;  on  the  way  home  he  was  con- 
tentedly silent.  He  and  the  collie  were  great 
chums;  Laddie  even  let  pussy  eat  out  of  his 
plate.  Both  were  epicures,  too;  when  we  were 
eating,  they  sat  on  their  hind  legs,  eagerly 


°$         ENEMIES   IN   THE   GARDEN        97 

watching  for  titbits,  which  they  preferred  to 
anything  we  put  on  their  plates.  Epicurism  was 
Silverheels's  one  great  fault;  no  matter  how 
many  titbits  and  how  much  raw  liver  we  gave 
him,  he  caught  a  bird  for  a  dainty  meal  every 
day.  He  knew  he  was  doing  wrong;  for  after  I 
had  thrown  my  cap  at  him  a  few  times  he  no 
longer  brought  the  birds  home,  but  ate  them  in 
the  field.  So  it  served  him  right  to  be  caught  in 
the  crow  trap. 

Cats  and  dogs  sometimes  do  a  good  deal  of 
harm  in  the  garden  by  rolling  on  borders  or 
tearing  them  up.  The  editor  of  Black's  Gar- 
dening Dictionary  indicates  two  ways  of 
dealing  with  them.  One  of  them  is  to  leave 
tempting  pieces  of  meat,  with  cayenne  pepper 
concealed  in  them,  lying  about;  the  other,  to 
sink  bottles  in  the  border  and  put  a  little  strong 
ammonia  into  them.  Mice  he  would  exterminate 
with  traps;  rats  with  some  poison  that  is  harm- 
less to  other  animals;  and  moles  by  following 
the  main  run  to  the  "earth"  and  digging  them 
out.  Poisoned  worms,  he  thinks,  are  not  much 
good. 


CHAPTER  X.     LADYBIRDS, 
TOADS,   AND   CHICKENS 

I  HAVE  just  referred  to  Black's  Gardening 
Dictionary,  an  excellent  book  of  reference, 
published  in  London.  It  requires  twenty- 
six  pages  to  describe  "insect  pests"  in  the 
garden,  while  the  "insect  friends"  are  dis- 
posed of  in  three  pages.  The  most  beneficent 
of  these  friends  is  the  ladybird. 

The  French  call  the  ladybird  bete  a  bon 
Dieu,  and  it  certainly  does  seem  as  if  this  little 
beetle  had  been  specially  sent  from  heaven  to 
protect  and  encourage  gardeners  and  orchard- 
ists.  I  happened  to  be  in  California  one  winter 
when  there  were  tremendous  excitement  and 
great  joy  among  lemon  and  orange  growers 
because  a  remedy  had  at  last  been  found  for  the 
fluted  scale,  which  threatened  the  extinction 
of  the  whole  citrus  industry  in  that  state.  Max 
Nebelung,  my  brother-in-law,  took  me  out 
gleefully  to  let  me  see  how  the  Australian  lady- 
bird (also  called  ladybug)  was  annihilating  the 
pestiferous  San  Jose  scale,  which  bears  the 
appropriate  name  of  Aspidiotus  perniciosus. 
The  trunks  and  branches  of  most  of  the  family's 
trees  (a  few  years  ago  $100,000  was  offered  for 
this  orchard)  were  completely  covered  with  these 
minute  sap-sucking  insects,  but  hundreds  of  lady- 
bugs  were  devouring  them  eagerly,  and  the  best 
part  of  it  was  that  they  did  not  leave  a  single 
enemy  on  a  tree  when  they  flew  to  the  next. 


'«  LADYBIRDS  AND  TOADS  99 

In  our  gardens  several  varieties  of  this  darling 
beetle  make  themselves  useful.  The  spotted 
ladybird  is  death  on  the  asparagus  beetle, 
which,  if  not  checked,  will  destroy  a  whole  bed 
of  this  delectable  vegetable.  These  ladybirds 
are  pretty  creatures,  rose  colored,  with  black 
spots.  I  catch  them  in  the  vegetable  garden  by 
the  handful  and  carry  them  to  the  asparagus, 
or  sweet  pea,  or  poppy  beds,  or  wherever  else 
they  are  most  wanted.  That  the  sweet  peas 
need  them  badly  sometimes  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  a  single  green  aphis  of  the 
kind  which  destroy  the  leaves  of  this  plant 
may  in  one  season  become  the  progenitor  of 
nearly  half  a  million  aphides.  I  hate  particu- 
larly the  black  aphides  which  cluster  around  the 
stems  of  poppies.  Arsenic  kills  them,  but  I 
don't  want  to  spray  my  choice  blossoms,  so  I 
rely  on  these  beetles,  and  they  do  the  job 
efficiently. 

TOADS,   YES— SNAKES,   NO 

Toads  I  also  carry  (in  tin  cans)  to  my  favorite 
garden  beds.  To  be  sure,  they  may  swallow  the 
betes  a  bon  Dieu  along  with  beetles  that  come 
from  the  "other  place,"  but  that  cannot  be 
helped.  Toadie  must  be  fed  even  if  we  have  to 
throw  in  a  few  of  our  best  friends  to  fill  his 
capacious  maw.  Snakes,  on  the  other  hand — 
who  wants  snakes  in  his  garden?  I  kill  them 
always.  To  be  sure,  they  are  insectivorous,  but 


100      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         1? 

they  also  swallow  young  toads — I  have  rescued 
some  of  them  at  the  critical  moment — so  there 
you  are!  Everything  we  do  in  this  world  is 
both  right  and  wrong. 

Casuistry  invades  the  garden,  too.  Shall 
we  kill  squirrels?  They  are  such  dear  little 
things;  so  amusing  to  watch;  but  they  destroy 
birds'  eggs;  and  birds,  after  all,  are  more  desir- 
able, for  they  eat  insects  and  they  delight  us 
with  song — so  there  you  are  again.  And  when 
the  birds  eat  your  cherries  or  berries — but  let 
us  draw  a  curtain  over  this  perplexing  problem, 
except  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  big  birds  we  call 
crows  and  chickens. 

Should  gardeners  kill  the  crows  which  destroy 
field  mice,  moles,  and  other  pests?  No  and  yes. 
A  few  days  ago  a  young  farmer  told  me  how 
one  year  the  crows  were  so  abundant  that  they 
not  only  devastated  the  corn  fields,  but  dug  out 
and  ate  the  potatoes  just  planted.  They  ate 
also  the  poisoned  corn  left  for  them  in  conven- 
ient little  piles.  Then  they  flew  on  trees  and 
fell  down  dead.  The  skunks  which  ate  them 
also  died,  whereat  the  trappers  raised  a  howl. 
Curious  concatenation:  farmer,  crow,  corn, 
strychnine,  skunk,  trapper! 

Shall  chickens  be  allowed  in  the  garden  or 
orchard?  In  the  orchard,  yes,  by  all  means. 
I  once  noticed  on  a  farm  that  the  trees  in  the 
part  of  an  apple  orchard  open  to  the  hens  had  a 
full  crop  of  fruit  every  year,  whereas  the  other 


*»  LADYBIRDS  AND  TOADS         101 

trees  played  the  usual  aggravating  seesaw  be- 
tween too  much  one  year  and  nothing  at  all  the 
next.  In  1920  New  York  had  a  bumper  crop  of 
apples,  while  Maine — at  least  this  part  of  it — 
had  only  a  bushel  or  two.  Of  our  own  trees 
the  only  ones  bearing  that  autumn  were  the 
two  which  in  the  preceding  fall  got  each  a  pail- 
ful of  enrichment  from  the  henhouse. 

CHICKENS   AND   THE   GARDEN 

In  gardens,  too,  chickens  would  be  desirable 
if  they  would  only  behave  themselves ;  but  they 
don't.  They  would  be  welcome  to  all  the  grass- 
hoppers they  could  catch  and  all  the  worms  they 
could  scratch;  but  when  they  eat  young  plants, 
or  ripe  tomatoes,  or  dig  out  precious  plants  in 
quest  of  insects,  you  gently  but  firmly  drive 
them  back  to  their  inclosure.  What  I  do  with 
our  flock  of  fifty  is  to  let  them  out  on  the  pasture 
for  an  hour  daily;  the  grasshoppers  and  moths 
and  other  critters  they  swallow  in  that  time  are 
a  valuable  addition  to  the  diet  which  we  don't 
have  to  pay  for. 

If  the  chickens  are  of  no  use  to  the  garden — 
except  when  all  the  damageable  crops  are  in, 
after  which  they  should  be  turned  loose  in  it  all 
day — the  garden,  on  the  other  hand,  is  of  great 
use  to  them.  In  speaking  of  pigs  I  refer  to  the 
now  fully  recognized  importance  of  greens  in 
their  diet  because  of  their  growth-promoting 
food  salts.  Chickens,  too,  grow  faster  and  are 


102      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

better  to  eat  if  they  get  plenty  of  green  fodder 
from  the  garden.  Lettuce  plants  that  refuse  to 
head  are  punished  by  being  pitched  into  the 
hen  yard  instead  of  our  salad  bowl.  Lawn  clip- 
pings, clovers,  and  all  tender  weeds  are  relished 
by  them,  but  the  best  thing  is  a  row  of  Swiss 
chard,  because  the  huge  outside  leaves  can  be 
broken  off  frequently,  being  replaced  in  a  few 
days  by  others.  To  make  the  chickens  eat  the 
maximum  of  greens  I  always  throw  the  leaves 
in  early  in  the  morning,  when  they  are  raven- 
ously hungry,  and  half  an  hour  before  their 
other  meals. 

Burbank  has  created  a  Rainbow  variety 
which  makes  chard  ornamental  as  well  as 
useful. 

It  is  really  astonishing  how  the  feed  bill  can 
be  reduced  by  making  the  garden  tributary  to 
the  chickens.  The  other  day  we  had  five  broilers 
for  ourselves  and  guests.  I  roughly  figured  out 
the  cost  to  us  of  these  five  as  about  four  dollars. 
At  New  York  City  prices  for  broilers  it  would 
have  been  twelve  dollars.  We  have  twenty  hens 
which  lay  on  the  average  three  dollars'  worth  of 
eggs  a  week.  That  pays  for  the  grain  we  have 
to  buy  for  the  whole  flock  of  fifty  chickens. 
Making  allowance  for  this,  our  broilers  cost 
even  less  than  the  sum  I  named. 

As  for  hens,  I  have  heard  that  they  can  be 
made  entirely  self-supporting  by  letting  them 
eat  their  own  eggs.  I  haven't  tried  this;  it 


^  LADYBIRDS  AND  TOADS         103 

seems  stingy.  Besides,  we  want  the  eggs  our- 
selves, don't  we? 

The  egg  shells,  however,  they  can  have;  and 
also  give  them  crushed  oyster  shells.  There  is 
a  current  belief  that  if  you  throw  them  the 
shells  the  hens  will  learn  to  eat  the  eggs.  I 
have  never  seen  them  do  that;  but  I  have  seen 
them  indulge  in  downright  cannibalism.  A 
poor  little  chick  was  hurt,  and  as  soon  as  its 
companions  saw  the  raw  flesh  they  pounced  on 
it  and  tore  out  chunks  before  I  could  stop  them. 

The  chickens'  appetite  for  meat,  raw  or 
cooked,  is  astonishing.  If  you  want  to  see  some 
fun  throw  them  a  chop  bone.  One  chicken  will 
seize  it  and  run,  the  others  following  in  hot 
pursuit.  One  after  another  will  grab  the  bone, 
only  to  lose  it  in  turn.  Not  being  a  football 
reporter,  I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  the 
tussle  for  that  bone. 

One  September  day,  when  we  were  summering 
in  the  Sunday  River  Valley,  a  hen  which  had 
secretly  made  its  nest  in  the  woods  came  home 
with  seven  little  chicks.  The  owner  of  the  farm 
was  for  destroying  them,  as  it  was  too  late  to 
bring  them  up  in  this  climate,  but  I  begged  her 
to  let  me  see  what  I  could  do.  Knowing  their 
carnal  appetite,  I  thought  I  could  force  their 
growth  by  an  exclusive  meat  diet.  Presently 
they  all  began  to  fight;  "they  fit  all  day  and 
they  fit  all  night,"  and  the  little  feathers,  which 
they  needed  so  badly  as  the  days  and  nights 


104      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         "8 

grew  cooler,  were  all  torn  out.  I  asked  an  old 
farmer  about  it. 

"What  do  you  feed  them?"  he  asked. 

"Nothing  but  meat,"  I  replied. 

"Drop  it,"  he  said,  "and  give  them  crushed 
grain." 

I  did  so,  and  the  war  ended  promptly. 

Is  this  an  argument  for  vegetarianism?  If 
so,  it  might  be  well  to  incorporate  vegetarianism 
among  the  commandments  of  the  League  of 
Nations. 

A  PROHIBITION  ROOSTER 

Some  of  the  boarders  that  same  summer 
hatched  out  an  original  plan  for  celebrating  the 
Fourth  of  July.  Fireworks  we  didn't  care  for, 
but  wouldn't  it  be  great  fun  to  get  the  old 
rooster  drunk?  We  imagined  him  strutting 
about  and  making  as  great  a  show  of  himself 
as  any  drunken  man  ever  seen  on  the  stage. 
There  was  nothing  cruel  about  it.  He  might 
have  a  headache  the  next  day,  but  who  cares 
whether  a  rooster  has  a  headache  or  not?  He 
had  to  fast  on  the  third  day  of  the  month  and 
the  next  morning  he  eagerly  ate  several  slices 
of  bread  soaked  in  whisky.  Then  we  waited, 
waited,  and  waited.  Nothing  happened.  Evi- 
dently that  wasn't  his  idea  of  properly  cele- 
brating the  glorious  Fourth.  We  ought  to  have 
had  sense  enough  to  reflect  that  a  Maine  rooster 
wouldn't  get  drunk,  because  he  knew  he  mustn't. 


^  LADYBIRDS  AND  TOADS         105 

He  was  a  red  rooster — a  Rhode  Island  red. 
In  chickendom  I  confess  I  like  the  reds;  they 
are  good  to  eat,  healthy,  and  not  afraid  of  foxes 
or  skunks.  Like  guinea  hens  and  turkeys,  they 
love  to  roam  the  woods,  which  makes  them 
gamy.  Their  foraging  habits  make  them  liter- 
ally self-supporting,  not  even  a  garden  being 
needed.  To  make  them  sweet  and  tender  for 
the  table,  however,  it  is  well  to  imprison  them 
the  last  two  weeks  of  their  short  life  and  feed 
them  corn,  chard,  and  milk. 

It  is  too  bad  that  chickens  don't  behave 
themselves  in  a  garden.  They  could  do  ever  so 
much  good  by  eating  destructive  bugs  and 
worms ;  but  their  habit  of  scratching,  scratching, 
scratching  all  day  long  (the  little  chicks  begin 
to  scratch  the  day  they  are  hatched)  makes 
chicken  wire  a  necessity.  I  wish  there  was 
something  as  simple  as  chicken  wire  to  prevent 
the  damage  by  worms  and  by  trees  (often 
unsuspected)  to  which  we  must  now  give  our 
attention. 


CHAPTER  XL    MORALS  OF  ELM 
TREES  AND   CUTWORMS 

IN   Oregon,  where  I  was  brought  up,  people 
used  to  hate  trees,  particularly  the  big  ones. 
Why?     Because   their   room   was    preferred 
to  their  company.    There  were  a  few  large 
and    astonishingly    fertile    regions,    notably 
the  Willamette,  Rogue  River,   and  Umqua 
Valleys,  ready  for  the  plow  and  the  hoe,  but 
elsewhere,  if  a  settler  wanted  a  home  he  had  to 
begin  by  making  a  "clearing" — that  is,  he  had 
to  chop  down  and  burn  giant  trees  and  painfully 
dig  out  the  stumps  before  tilth  was  possible. 

Though  an  Oregonian,  I  never  shared  the 
general  hatred  of  trees,  possibly  because  I 
didn't  have  to  dig  out  stumps.  We  lived  in  the 
Willamette  Valley.  We  owned  hundreds  of 
the  jumbo  trees,  but  as  we  had  plenty  of  arable 
land  for  garden  and  orchard  we  left  them  alone. 
Now,  alas !  they  are  all  gone,  turned  into  boards, 
planks,  and  shingles.  It  almost  makes  me  weep 
to  think  of  it. 

While  I  have  always  admired  and  defended 
trees,  I  must  say  there  are  things  about  them 
I  do  not  like.  Their  moral  character  is  deplor- 
able. In  front  of  my  window  there  are  two 
stately  elms  of  the  finest  New  England  stock, 
and  three  splendid  maple  trees,  sweet,  graceful, 
and  umbrageous.  To  the  eye  nothing  could  be 
more  beautiful,  ingratiating,  and  altruistic;  but 
beneath  this  fair  exterior  there  is  utter  selfish- 


V         MORALS   OF  ELMS,   WORMS      107 

ness  and  complete  disregard  of  other  people's 
property  rights.  Let  me  explain. 

Some  years  ago  I  started  out  to  raise  pansies 
such  as  for  size  and  beauty  had  never  been 
equaled  in  Oxford  County.  I  had  two  books  and 
several  leaflets,  besides  years  of  personal  experi- 
ence, to  guide  me.  Nothing  was  left  undone 
that  would  make  the  flowers  large,  brilliant,  and 
fragrant;  but  I  never  had  such  a  wretched  lot 
of  pansies  in  my  life.  They  started  out  well, 
but  gradually  they  became  smaller  until  they 
were  not  much  better  than  the  pert  and  puny 
Johnny-jump-ups,  the  simian  ancestors  of  the 
pansy. 

Was  I  disgusted?  Puzzled,  too.  I  didn't 
wait  for  them  to  die,  but  dug  them  out  at  once — 
and  what  do  you  suppose  I  found?  A  colony 
of  root-eating  worms  and  bugs?  Worse  than 
that.  The  post-mortem  revealed  a  ruthless 
conspiracy  to  ruin  my  flowers.  A  neighboring 
elm  tree  had  sent  one  of  its  root  branches  into 
the  center  of  my  bed,  and  from  there  a  million 
tiny  rootlets  radiated  in  all  directions  and 
greedily  sucked  up  the  rich  plant  food  and  the 
water  I  had  provided  for  the  pansies.  Their 
tender  roots  had  struggled  in  vain  to  hold  their 
own  against  the  Boche  invader. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  an  Eiffel  Tower  elm 
needs  an  enormous  amount  of  mineral  matter 
and  water — tons  of  water  daily,  to  be  evapo- 
rated by  its  countless  leaves — have  you  ever 


108      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         °£ 

tried  to  count  them?  It  has  been  estimated 
that  "the  largest  steam  boiler  in  use,  kept  con- 
stantly boiling,  could  not  evaporate  more  water 
than  one  large  elm  would  in  the  same  time." 
Granted.  But  does  that  excuse  the  elm  for 
hogging  it — having  all  four  feet  in  the  trough, 
so  to  speak — and  taking  away  from  my  three 
hundred  timid  pansies  every  drop  of  water  I 
toilsomely  provided?  I  fear  that,  morally  con- 
sidered, elm  trees  are  not  much  better  than 
human  beings  and  other  monopolists.  The  doc- 
trine of  live  and  let  live  has  not  yet  penetrated 
their  bark.  But  I  now  know  how  to  get  even 
with  them.  I  plant  my  pansies  as  near  their 
shade  as  I  darn  please,  but  every  few  weeks  I 
take  the  sod  cutter  and  ply  it  along  the  four 
sides  of  the  bed. 
Revenge  is  sweet. 

TRAGEDIES   IN   THE   GARDEN 

By  contrast  with  witch  grass,  to  be  sure,  the 
elm  tree  is  almost  a  saint.  It  is  known  officially 
as  Johnson  grass  because  it  was  originally  im- 
ported by  a  man  named  Johnson  from  Turkey 
— and  it  has  all  the  moral  qualities  for  which 
the  Turks  have  been  notorious  for  centuries. 
Nothing  can  withstand  the  propagandist  prog- 
ress of  this  grass.  On  and  on  it  creeps  in  all 
directions,  sending  up  fresh  blades  every  few 
inches.  Its  business  end  is  a  sort  of  needle,  so 
sharp  that  it  can  penetrate  through  an  iris 


«         MORALS  OF  ELMS,   WORMS       109 

bulb  that  stands  in  its  way !  I  have  seen  it  with 
my  own  eyes.  In  neglected  gardens  I  have  often 
seen  flowering  plants  and  vegetables  pitilessly 
pierced,  smothered,  and  strangled  by  this  vege- 
table Turk. 

Tragedies  of  this  sort  by  the  million  are  daily 
and  nightly  enacted  over  and  under  ground  in 
our  gardens.  Every  morning  the  first  thing  I 
do  is  to  see  what  harm  has  been  done  by  the 
cutworms.  They  are  not  so  big  as  the  "worm" 
Fafner,  but  they  do  a  great  deal  of  harm. 
Their  modus  operand!  consists  in  cutting  off 
a  baby  plant  just  where  it  comes  out  of  the 
ground.  The  worm  eats  a  part  of  the  stem  or 
leaf — its  appetite  is  not  big — but  the  plant  is 
dead — its  leaves  lie  prone;  and  that  is  your 
chance.  They  betray  the  presence  of  the  cul- 
prit. Dig  down  an  inch  and  you  generally  find 
him.  If  you  don't  he'll  murder  another  plant 
before  to-morrow  morning.  I  have  known  a 
cut  worm  to  bite  through  the  big  stem  of  a  young 
tomato  just  transplanted. 

MALICIOUS  WORMS 

All  these  things  might  be  overlooked  were  it 
not  for  a  diabolical  trait  which  differentiates 
the  cutworm  from  other  burrowers.  There  are 
plenty  of  them — among  them  the  yellow  wire 
worm  and  the  white  grubs.  But  these  eat  the 
roots,  and  they  eat  them  where  the  plants  are 
abundant,  the  more  the  merrier.  Not  so  with 

8 


110      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

the  cutworm.  He  has  some  mysterious,  mali- 
cious instinct  which  guides  him  infallibly  to 
those  spots  in  the  garden  where  you  least  want 
him.  I  am  not  joking;  it  is  an  actual  fact.  Out 
of  about  one  hundred  and  forty  precious  romaine 
plants  I  transplanted  the  other  day,  forty-five 
have  already  been  destroyed.  Near  by  is  a  row 
of  salad  plants  by  the  hundred,  where  forty-five 
wouldn't  be  missed;  but  not  one  of  these  has 
been  hurt. 

In  another  part  of  the  garden  there  is  a  cucum- 
ber hill  on  which  only  two  seeds  came  up, 
strange  to  say.  One  of  these  fell  a  victim  to  a 
cutworm  this  morning.  (I  got  him!)  The 
adjoining  hill  had  twenty  young  squash  plants. 
They,  of  course,  were  all  right.  There's  safety 
in  numbers.  Can  you  imagine  anything  more 
cowardly  than  a  cutworm?  Let  us  draw  the 
foot  over  him — over  any  worm,  in  fact,  except 
the  angleworm;  he's  harmless — in  fact,  he  is 
useful;  he  shows  us  where  the  soil  is  rich;  he 
helps  to  make  it  ready  for  use;  Darwin  was  so 
struck  by  his  beneficence  that  he  wrote  a  book 
about  him;  he  is  good  for  fishing,  and  in  Chinese 
restaurants  he  adorns  certain  varieties  of  chop 
suey.  Why  not?  On  Berlin  menus  I  have  seen 
the  word  Maikafersuppe — soup  made  of  what 
we  call  June  bugs. 

Cutworms  might  make  themselves  useful,  and 
welcome,  too,  in  the  garden  if  they  would  help 
us  thin  out  plants.  I  have  a  hundred-foot  row 


"8?  MORALS  OF  ELMS,  WORMS  111 
of  bean  plants,  half  of  which  will  have  to  be 
pulled  out.  The  worms  have  taken  only  one — 
just  like  them,  though  they  love  beans.  No, 
the  best  thing  to  do  with  these  fellows  is  to 
exterminate  them.  One  way  of  making  them 
harmless  is  illustrated  in  my  sweet-pea  row. 
On  both  sides  of  this  I  planted  radish  seeds 
thickly;  these  always  come  up  in  a  few  days 
and  provide  cheap  food  for  the  worm.  I  have 
lost  only  one  sweet  pea  this  year,  and  most  of 
the  radishes  are  left  for  our  table. 

Gophers  are  another  variety  of  lower- world 
denizens  that  keep  the  gardener  guessing  where 
they'll  turn  up  next.  They  create  a  tortuous 
upheaval  somewhat  resembling  that  of  an  earth- 
quake, and  a  row  of  your  favorite  flower  or 
vegetables  is  liable  to  be  suddenly  severed  from 
its  base  and  left  with  a  tunnel  underneath. 
Fortunately,  we  are  seldom  bothered  by  these 
burrowers;  but  my  friend  Luther  Burbank  was 
at  one  time  so  harassed  by  them  that  he  aban- 
doned his  gladiolus  colony  for  some  years. 

Have  you  seen  the  Burbank  brand  of  gladioli? 
If  not,  you  have  something  to  live  for.  In  one 
respect  the  gophers  are  like  cutworms.  As 
Burbank  remarks,  "the  animals  took  special 
delight  in  attacking  the  choicest  plants."  He 
suffered  a  loss  from  these  pests  of  "  certainly  not 
less  than  a  thousand  dollars  year  after  year." 
All  the  usual  traps  were  tried  in  vain,  but  finally 
the  gopher  gun  was  invented.  It  consists  of  a 


112      GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         « 

trap  so  arranged  that  when  the  gopher  pokes 
his  nose  against  the  trigger  a  charge  of  powder 
explodes  beneath  the  animal,  killing  him  in- 
stantly by  concussion.  With  this  device  thirty- 
five  to  forty  gophers  were  destroyed  on  his 
grounds  daily,  and  finally  he  was  able  to  resume 
the  cultivation  of  the  gladiolus. 

STUDY   THE   ANATtfMY  OF   ROOTS 

If  there  were  such  a  thing  as  a  rural  police 
department  it  might  do  a  lot  of  good  by  captur- 
ing a  number  of  gophers  and  wire  and  cut  worms 
and  subjecting  them  to  the  third  degree.  They 
could  give  us  useful  information  about  the 
anatomy  of  roots.  This  is  a  branch  of  horti- 
culture which  has  been  surprisingly  neglected. 
All  the  garden  books  sing  the  praises  of  the  hoe 
and  dwell  on  the  need  of  working  it  industri- 
ously to  kill  weeds,  to  let  in  fresh  air  which  the 
roots  need  almost  as  much  as  the  leaves  do,  and 
to  create  a  dust  mulch  for  keeping  the  moisture 
in  the  ground.  But  seldom  is  the  man  with 
the  hoe  or  the  plow  warned  that  while  he  may 
be  doing  good  in  these  ways  he  is  likely  to  do 
more  harm  by  destroying  the  roots  of  the 
precious  plants. 

Many  a  promising  potato  patch  has  been 
ruined  by  being  injudiciously  hoed  or  plowed  by 
one  ignorant  of  root  anatomy.  The  American 
corn  crop  averages  only  twenty-six  bushels  per 
acre.  This  could  easily  be  doubled  and  even 


TB         MORALS  OF  ELMS,   WORMS       113 

trebled  (it  often  is)  if  the  average  farmer  knew 
certain  things — if  he  knew,  for  instance,  that 
the  one  most  important  object  of  cultivating 
corn  is  the  destruction  of  weeds,  which  is  a 
superficial  operation.  The  deeper  plowing  and 
hoeing  so  often  practiced  destroy  millions  of 
roots  and  rootlets,  and  thus  do  infinitely  more 
harm  than  good. 

In  the  Country  Gentleman  for  April  5, 
1919,  L.  F.  Graber  gave  the  following  expert 
testimony  on  this  point  which  every  gardener 
and  farmer  should  take  to  heart: 


Thirty  years  ago  Professor  Morrow  of  the  University 
of  Illinois  found  that  he  could  reduce  the  yields  of  corn 
seventeen  bushels  an  acre  by  simply  placing  a  frame 
twelve  inches  square  over  the  hills  and  running  a  knife 
blade  four  inches  deep  round  the  outside.  This  was  the 
first  experiment  showing  the  danger  of  root  pruning 
from  deep  cultivation.  The  evidence  gathered  by  numer- 
ous experiment  stations  since  then  in  favor  of  shallow 
cultivation  is  so  abundant  and  overwhelming  that 
nothing  more  need  be  said,  but  considerable  consterna- 
tion among  experimenters  and  corn  growers  was  caused 
by  the  publication  of  a  bulletin  four  years  ago  by  the 
Illinois  station  giving  data  showing  increased  yields  from 
no  cultivation  at  all. 

With  an  average  of  sixteen  tests  covering  a  period  of 
eight  years,  it  was  found  that  killing  weeds  without  cul- 
tivation— that  is,  by  scraping  them  off  with  a  sharp  hoe 
— gave  17.1  per  cent,  or  6.7  bushels,  more  corn  an  acre 
than  was  possible  with  ordinary  cultivation.  At  the 
outset  these  results  appear  astounding,  but  a  study  of 
the  data  reveals  those  very  fundamental  and  basic 


114      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         V 

principles  which  underlie  the  most  successful  methods 
of  corn  cultivation. 

Corn  is  a  vigorous  surface  feeder.  Three-quarters  of 
the  roots  will  be  found  in  the  plowed  soil,  and  it  is  here 
that  the  plant  gets  its  heavy  requirements  of  fertilizing 
elements  for  rapid  growth.  Cultivate  this  surface  soil 
three  or  four  inches  deep  and  you  not  only  injure  some 
of  the  corn  roots,  but  you  deprive  them  of  about  one- 
half  of  that  rich  feeding  area  which  is  available  when 
weeds  are  killed  without  stirring  the  soil  by  just  scraping 
with  a  hoe.  Hence  the  6.7  bushels  increase.  But  how 
about  conserving  moisture?  Is  a  loose  surface  mulch 
not  necessary?  In  the  subhumid  or  semiarid  section 
cultivation  to  conserve  moisture  is  an  all-important 
matter ;  but  under  the  humid  climatic  conditions  of  the 
Corn  Belt  the  Illinois  station  found  that  little  or  no  soil 
moisture  escapes  after  the  dense  network  of  corn  roots, 
radiating  in  all  directions,  becomes  established. 

In  other  words,  the  surface  soil  is  of  more  value  as  a 
source  of  plant  food  than  it  is  in  saving  moisture.  This, 
of  course,  does  not  mean  that  it  is  practical  to  scrape  the 
weeds  out  of  our  corn  fields  with  a  hoe,  but  it  does  mean, 
most  emphatically,  that  corn  should  be  cultivated  deep 
enough  to  kill  the  weeds  and  no  deeper.  It  means  that 
we  should  cultivate  shallow  enough  to  reduce  the  root 
injury  to  a  minimum,  and  shallow  enough  to  provide 
the  roots  with  as  much  surface  soil  as  it  is  possible  to 
give  them  for  feeding  purposes. 


CHAPTER  XII.    DAILY  MIRACLES 
IN   THE   GARDEN 

IN  delightful  contrast  to  the  shocking,  grasp- 
ing immorality  of  elm  trees,  laid  bare  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  is  the  conduct  of  sorrel, 
the  most  unselfish  of  all  plants.    Many  who 
have   it   in   their   gardens   look  on  it  as  a 
weed  and  a  nuisance — thus  is  true  nobility 
of  character  oft  misjudged.     It  is,  in  truth,  a 
miracle  of  altruism. 

See  what  it  does!  Like  all  other  plants,  it 
loves  a  rich  soil,  dotes  on  growing  luxuriantly. 
But  does  it  choose  the  rich  spots  in  the  garden, 
where  it  could  vegetate  profusely?  Not  a  bit 
of  it.  Once  in  a  while  you  see  a  morally  degen- 
erate specimen  which  forgets  its  manners  and 
spreads  its  roots  in  a  rich  place  intended  for 
other,  sweeter  vegetables,  but  as  a  rule  it  exiles 
itself  to  the  most  arid  corners  of  garden  or 
pasture. 

Why  does  it  do  this?  Simply  because  it  has 
got  it  into  its  head  that  its  mission  in  life  is  to 
help  gardeners.  How?  By  informing  them  that 
the  soil  in  which  it  has  ascetically  and  acetically 
decided  to  grow  is  sour  (birds  of  a  feather  flock 
together)  and  needs  lime  to  sweeten  it.  "If 
wild  sorrel  grows  freely  about  your  garden  you 
need  lime,"  says  the  guidebook. 

American  gardeners,  instead  of  being  grateful 
to  the  sorrel  for  this  information,  mercilessly  hoe 
it  out.  The  French  are  more  astute  and  appre- 


116      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

ciative.  In  reward  for  the  self-abnegation  of  the 
oseille  they  give  it  a  rich  place  in  the  garden 
where  it  can  be  happy,  and  the  best  intensive 
cultivation.  Then  they  eat  it.  Wouldn't  you 
rather  be  eaten  by  epicures  than  just  rudely 
hoed  down? 

In  one  respect  the  sorrel  is  like  other  plants. 
There  are  no  old  maids  in  the  vegetable  world. 
Every  individual  plant  regards  it  as  its  moral 
duty  to  leave  as  many  children  as  possible.  I 
have  sometimes  thought  that  I  would  count  all 
the  seeds  on  a  single  wild  mustard  plant,  but 
when  I  looked  at  it  my  courage  oozed  away. 
Life  is  short.  Wild  sorrel  also  produces  seeds  by 
the  million;  the  tops  of  the  plants  paint  whole 
fields  a  rich  brown,  so  that  any  one  who  under- 
stands the  language  of  flowers  can  read  at  a 
distance,  "This  soil  needs  lime." 

THE   INTELLIGENCE   OF   PLANTS 

If  you  think  plants  have  no  intelligence,  the 
ingenuity  they  display  in  the  matter  of  having 
children  must  surely  seem  to  you  nothing  short 
of  miraculous.  Take  any  one  of  a  dozen  weeds 
that  might  be  named.  If  they  begin  life  early 
in  spring,  when  the  soil  is  rich  and  moist  from 
frequent  showers,  they  spend  lots  of  time  in 
growing  tall  and  sending  out  side  branches 
covered  with  blossoms,  laying  their  plans  for 
progeny  with  old-fashioned  patriarchal  lavish- 
ness.  But  if  they  begin  their  career  late  in 


1?        MIRACLES   IN  THE   GARDEN     117 

summer  or  during  a  drought,  the  same  plants 
that  in  spring  would  have  indulged  in  Solo- 
monic dreams  of  a  thousand  children  content 
themselves  with  a  dozen.  While  weeding  I 
have  often  been  struck  and  almost  touched  by 
the  despairing,  frantic  efforts  of  a  poor,  mutilated 
plant  to  leave  something  behind,  be  it  only  a 
single  seed.  A  plant  lecturer  on  Malthusianism 
or  birth  control  would  be  promptly  hooted  out 
of  the  garden  by  all  the  plants,  weeds  or  no 
weeds. 

Darwin,  Wallace,  Bates,  Lubbock  (don't  fail 
to  read  his  Flowers,  Fruits,  and  Leaves),  and 
other  eminent  naturalists  have  written  on 
mimicry,  on  the  many  ingenious  contrivances  to 
secure  the  advantages  of  cross-fertilization  by 
attracting  insects,  and  on  other  astonishing 
manifestations  of  plant  intelligence.  Maeter- 
linck's charming  little  essay,  L' Intelligence 
des  Fleurs,  presents  some  of  these  romantic 
facts  in  popular  language.  Have  you  ever  read 
a  book  describing  the  thorns  and  the  acrid 
juices  and  strong,  disagreeable  odors  by  which 
desert  plants  intelligently  protect  themselves 
against  foraging  animals? 

Here  in  the  desert,  writes  Burbank, 

are  plants  which,  although  there  may  be  not  a  drop  of 
rain  for  a  year,  two  years,  or  even  ten,  still  contrive  to 
get  enough  moisture  out  of  the  deep  soil  and  out  of 
the  air  to  build  up  a  structure  which,  by  weight,  is 
92  per  cent  water — plants  which  contrive  to  absorb  from 


118      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         "8? 

the  scorching  desert,  and  to  protect  from  the  withering 
sun,  enough  moisture  to  make  them  nearly  as  juicy  as 
watermelons. 

Here  are  the  sagebrush,  with  a  bitterness  as  irritant, 
almost,  as  the  sting  of  a  bee;  the  euphorbia,  as  poisonous 
as  a  snake;  the  cactus,  as  well  armored  as  a  porcupine — 
and  for  the  same  reasons  that  the  bees  have  stings,  that 
snakes  have  fangs,  that  porcupines  have  arrowlike  spines 
— for  self-protection  from  some  stronger  enemy  which 
seeks  to  destroy. 

One  of  Burbank's  supreme  achievements  has 
been  to  pit  his  brains  against  the  intelligence  of 
these  desert  plants,  to  eliminate  their  hurt- 
fulness  and  make  them  subservient  to  mankind. 
But  let  us  return  to  the  garden. 

Gregory  wrote  a  book  on  squashes  in  which 
he  called  attention  to  a  trait  of  these  plants 
which  I  have  repeatedly  tested.  As  they  want 
always  to  look  their  best  and  dread  being 
mutilated  by  the  wind,  they  produce  tendrils 
with  which  to  cling  to  grass  or  anything  avail- 
able. If  there  is  no  grass  and  you  put  a  stick 
in  the  ground,  the  vine  will  steer  toward  it. 
Then,  when  it  has  almost  reached  the  stick,  if 
you  move  it  right  or  left,  the  vine  changes  its 
course  and  again  makes  a  bee  line  for  it.  How 
does  it  do  that?  Darned  if  I  know.  It's  one 
of  the  daily  miracles  in  the  garden. 

Underground,  the  roots  are  led  by  a  similar 
instinct  (or  whatever  you  choose  to  call  it)  to 
hunt  around  for  manure  and  water.  In  quest 
of  these  things  potato  roots  go  down  from  three 


«        MIRACLES   IN   THE   GARDEN     119 

and  a  half  to  four  and  a  half  feet,  while  corn 
roots  have  been  known  to  bore  for  moisture  to  a 
depth  of  six  feet. 

Potatoes  and  corn  and  other  garden  vege- 
tables know  a  lot  more  about  their  business 
than  we  do;  but  we  are  gradually  learning, 
thanks  to  the  recent  study  of  root  anatomy, 
which  thoroughly  condemns  the  vigorous  hoeing 
and  hilling  that  used  to  be  fashionable  and 
disastrous.  Use  your  little  fork  and  you  will 
see  that  such  plants  as  corn  and  potatoes  have 
networks  of  horizontal  roots  in  the  topmost 
inch  or  two  of  the  soil,  which  are  destroyed  by 
even  moderately  deep  tillage.  For  an  excellent 
account  of  the  harm  done  by  not  letting  intelli- 
gent plants  grow  as  they  want  to,  see  Samuel 
Eraser's  book,  The  Potato,  pp.  11-16. 

My  corn  and  my  potatoes  are  not  touched  by 
hoe  or  plow,  except  to  remove  the  weeds.  I 
wish  you  could  see  their  luxuriant  growth. 

HOW  PLANTS   UTILIZE   DEW 

A  few  years  ago  I  discovered  an  interesting 
fact  that  others,  of  course,  must  have  noticed, 
though  I  have  never  read  about  it.  Maine  is  a 
great  region  for  dew;  nearly  every  morning  it  is 
so  heavy  that  I  always  wear  my  rubber  boots 
till  eight  or  nine  o'clock.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  don't  usually  get  our  just  share  of  rain. 
There  are  showers,  but  you  know  how  aggra- 
vating local  and  limited  showers  usually  are. 


120      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

If  you  don't  know,  and  want  to  see  it  demon- 
strated graphically  and  geographically,  spend  a 
summer,  as  we  did  twice,  at  the  hotel  on  top  of 
Roan  Mountain,  in  North  Carolina.  The  land- 
lord will  show  you,  any  day,  in  which  county  or 
township  of  which  of  the  five  states  in  sight  the 
particular  shower  you  see  is  going  on. 

One  day  (in  Maine)  there  were  showers  all 
around  us,  on  the  mountains  and  in  the  valleys, 
but  our  garden  got  about  seventeen  drops. 
Next  morning,  nevertheless,  the  potato  plants 
had  little  rings  of  moisture  around  their  stems. 
The  bright  little  things  have  learned  how  to 
circumvent  drought  by  gathering  the  dew  and 
growing  a  special  set  of  rootlets  near  the  sur- 
face to  profit  by  it,  if  only  for  a  few  hours  daily. 
Corn  utilizes  the  dew  the  same  way;  so  does 
lettuce;  while  the  conical  shape  of  the  romaine 
plants  seems  to  have  been  evolved  especially 
for  dew-catching  purposes ;  it  helps  them  flourish 
in  midsummer. 

I  remember  reading,  some  years  ago,  about  an 
attempt  made  in  some  arid  region  to  collect  the 
dew  by  means  of  huge  conical  metal  sheets. 
There  are  lots  of  things  plants  can  teach  us. 

THE   MOST   MARVELOUS  THING   IN  THE  WORLD 

Darwin  called  the  tiny  brain  of  the  ant  the 
most  marvelous  thing  in  the  world,  but  Mark 
Twain  showed  by  his  amusing  experiment  in  the 
Black  Forest  how  grotesquely  limited  is  the 


•S?        MIRACLES   IN  THE   GARDEN     121 

ant's  vaunted  intelligence.  To  me  the  seed  of  a 
plant  seems  more  marvelous  in  its  way.  Sup- 
pose you  buy  a  mixed  package  of  poppy  seeds. 
Most  of  them  are  indistinguishable  to  the  eye 
and  much  smaller  than  a  pin's  head;  yet  each 
of  them  grows  infallibly  into  the  same  poppy  it 
descended  from,  be  it  Iceland  or  Oriental  or 
Darwin  or  Shirley  or  California,  or  what  not. 
Not  only  that,  but  any  changes  or  improvements 
made  by  plant  breeders  are  promptly  imbedded 
in  the  mysterious  substance  of  the  tiny  seed. 

Nothing  I  have  ever  said  to  or  written  about 
Luther  Burbank  in  admiration  of  his  achieve- 
ments pleased  him  more  than  my  noting  at 
once  that  the  Sunset  Shirleys  in  his  Santa  Rosa 
garden  were  perceptibly  more  golden  than  the 
preceding  summer's,  and  that  I  looked  forward 
to  enjoying  the  new  shade  in  my  Maine  garden 
the  following  year. 

In  Burbank's  garden,  certainly,  miracles  are 
of  daily  occurrence.  When  he  first  began  in 
California  to  "do  stunts"  with  the  plants, 
making  them  disregard  the  established  order  of 
things,  a  minister  invited  him  to  his  church  and 
then  fiercely  denounced  him  in  his  sermon  as 
one  who  interfered  with  the  laws  of  nature,  as 
God  alone  had  the  right  to  do.  But  Burbank 
knew  there  was  nothing  impious  in  his  new 
creations;  that  he  was  simply  accelerating 
nature's  processes  of  natural  selection  and 
improvement,  doing  in  a  decade  what  nature 


122       GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

unaided  would  have  taken  hundreds  or  thou- 
sands of  years  to  achieve. 

So  he  went  his  way  quietly,  putting  new  colors 
or  fragrance  into  flowers,  taking  pits  out  of 
plums,  removing  the  thorns  from  blackberry 
vines  and  cactus  leaves,  making  nut  trees  bear 
in  less  than  two  years  instead  of  in  ten  or  fifteen, 
removing  the  acrid  and  indigestible  tannin  from 
the  walnut,  creating  entirely  new  fruits  and 
berries,  such  as  the  phenomenal  and  primus  and 
the  plumcot,  and  putting  more  luscious  flavors 
into  old  ones,  growing  some  five  hundred  varie- 
ties of  cherries  on  one  tree,  and  a  hundred  other 
things  for  the  delectation  of  mankind. 

Burbank  is  a  great  believer  in  the  intelligence 
of  plants;  he  knows  that  if  you  give  them  a 
chance  they'll  perform  what  to  our  limited  intel- 
ligence seems  like  miracles.  Some  years  ago  he 
suggested  that  a  motion  picture  be  taken  con- 
densing half  a  month  of  the  growth  of  a  sweet- 
pea  vine  into  an  eight-minute  reel,  which  would 
show  us  the  vine  wriggling  and  writhing  and 
squirming,  waving  its  tendrils  around  in  the 
air,  feeling  out  every  inch  for  some  support,  and 
altogether  displaying  "an  inherited  intelligence 
which  would  be  surprising  even  in  an  animal." 

Concerning  the  remarkable  intelligence  of 
potatoes,  a  word  will  be  said  in  the  chapter  on 
Burbank.  It  would  be  unjust,  however,  to  put 
too  much  emphasis  on  the  intelligence  of  pro- 
letarian plants.  It  mi^ht  give  them  mis- 


^        MIRACLES   IN  THE   GARDEN     123 

chievous  ideas  of  superiority.  I  know  men  and 
women  who  are  even  more  intelligent  than 
Burbank  potatoes.  Of  course  they  have  gardens, 
and  from  their  gardens  they  have  learned  a  great 
deal ;  among  other  things,  gardening  has  taught 
them  how  to  be  happy  at  all  times,  rain  or 
shine.  This  point  is  so  very  important  that  a 
whole  chapter  must  be  devoted  to  it. 


CHAPTER     XIII.      HOW    TO    BE 
HAPPY,    RAIN    OR    SHINE 

fyou   want  to  be  happy   on  a  rainy   day, 
lave  a  garden  and  take  care  of  it  yourself. 
Soon   you  will   learn  to  know  the   flowers 
md  the  best  of  the  vegetables  as  personal 
"riends  to  whom  you  might  give  names  if 
there  were  not  so  many  of  them.     I    once 
read  a  story  about  a  Spanish  peasant  who  made 
pets  of  his  squashes ;  he  nursed  and  fed  them  as 
a  loving  mother  cares  for  her  children;   he  had 
names  for  all  of  them,  and  he  dreaded  the  day 
when  they  would  be  ready  for  the  market;  but 
sell  them  he  had  to,  because  he  needed  the 
money. 

On  the  day  before  he  intended  to  go  to 
market  he  found  them  all  gone.  He  suspected 
who  the  thief  was  and,  going  to  the  market, 
soon  found  and  claimed  the  squashes.  The 
vender  indignantly  denied  the  charge  and  called 
a  policeman  to  settle  the  case.  The  officer  simply 
smiled  when  the  peasant  called  his  pets  by  name, 
but  when  he  produced  the  ends  of  the  vines  and 
showed  how  they  fitted  exactly  and  individually 
into  the  vine  ends  of  the  squashes,  he  got  them 
back  and  the  thief  was  punished. 

That  peasant,  no  doubt,  was  happy  every 
time  it  rained,  because  he  knew  that  his  squashes 
were  enjoying  the  shower.  If  you  have  plants 
of  your  own,  you  too  will  come  to  sympathize 
with  all  their  joys  and  sorrows.  It  will  give  you 


•8  HAPPY— RAIN  OR  SHINE         125 

a  pang  to  see  them  drooping  in  a  drought,  but 
when  the  rain  comes  at  last  (in  New  York  it 
usually  comes  at  last  every  day)  you  will  feel 
an  altruistic  elation  that  will  make  the  day  one 
of  cheer  instead  of  depression  of  spirits.  The 
fine,  sunny  days  you  will,  of  course,  enjoy  for 
your  own  sake  as  well  as  the  garden's;  where- 
fore you  will  always  be  happy,  rain  or  shine. 
How  is  that  for  a  philosophy  of  life? 

THE   ART   OF   TRANSPLANTING 

I  am  superlatively  happy  to-day  because  it 
rains  dismally.  It  rained  dismally  all  yesterday 
and  last  night;  but  it  is  the  first  rain  in  a  month 
and  the  garden  needed  it  desperately.  The 
time  had  come,  too,  for  transplanting,  and  you 
cannot  transplant  successfully  on  scorching, 
sunny  days  unless  you  put  a  circus  tent  over 
your  garden.  I  got  up  at  five  o'clock,  put  on 
my  rubber  suit,  which  makes  me  as  amphibious 
as  a  frog,  and  carried  down  a  box  of  young 
Trianon  plants. 

What's  a  Trianon  plant?  You  really  don't 
know?  Why,  it's  a  variety  of  romaine,  or  cos 
(lettuce),  self-folding,  so  you  don't  have  to  tie 
it  up  to  bleach  it.  I  enjoyed  it  first  in  the  Paris 
restaurants,  where  the  epicures  prefer  it  to  the 
finest  head  lettuce.  Lean  and  green  specimens 
of  it  are  often  in  our  own  markets,  but  for  the 
snow-white  Parisian  sorts  you  pay  fifty  cents  a 
head  over  here.  You  do,  I  say — that  is,  if  you 

9 


126      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

are  an  epicure.  I  don't,  even  though  I  confess 
to  being  an  epicure  of  the  super  sort.  I  raise 
them  by  the  row  for  almost  nothing,  and  when 
the  time  comes  we  daily  pull  out  half  a  dozen 
solid  heads  and  eat  them — that  is,  in  part. 

You  may  have  heard  of  the  seals  along  the 
Pacific  coast  which  bite  out  of  a  big  salmon  one 
choice  mouthful  and  then  pass  on  to  the  next 
fish.  We  do  something  like  that  with  our 
romaine,  eating  only  the  hearts — crisp,  succu- 
lent, tasty,  so  full  of  vitamines  or  mineral 
salts  that  they  hardly  need  the  French  dressing, 
though  of  course  we  use  it.  We  are  wasteful, 
I  admit;  but  so  are  the  seals;  and  at  any  rate 
we  are  not  cruel.  If  anybody  wants  the  outside 
leaves  of  our  Trianon  (we  have  other  sorts  of 
cos,  too,  as  well  as  ordinary  lettuce),  send  us 
stamped  and  addressed  parcel-post  wrappers 
and  we'll  mail  them.1 

The  rain  was  not  the  only  thing  that  made  me 
happy  this  morning.  I  enjoyed  transplanting 
the  Trianons  (and  a  box  of  Burbank's  new 
Rainbow  chard)  because  I  know  how  to  do  that 
sort  of  thing  well — we  usually  love  our  work  in 
proportion  to  our  skill  in  doing  it.  I  had 
started  these  and  some  lettuce  plants  in  boxes, 
because  earliness  is  of  the  utmost  importance. 
Even  Iceberg,  Brittle  Ice,  Deacon,  and  New 

1  Some  kinds  of  romaine  are  not  self-heading — in  unfavorable 
dry  seasons  most  of  them  need  to  be  tied  near  the  top  with  soft 
string  or  raffia  to  blanch  the  inside  leaves. 


°£  HAPPY— RAIN  OR  SHINE         127 

York,  which  (with  Dreer's  Wonderful,  which  is 
well  named)  are  the  best  varieties  of  lettuce  for 
summer  growing,  are  apt  to  go  to  seed  without 
heading  if  their  heading  time  comes  too  late  in 
summer. 

Maine  is  kinder  to  these  frigid  plants  than 
Massachusetts  or  states  farther  south;  more 
than  once  a  market  gardener  from  near  Boston 
who  specializes  in  lettuce  has  envied  me  the 
cold  nights  here  and  admired  my  achievements; 
yet  an  occasional  summer's  prolonged  heat  and 
drought  are  deadly  to  most  of  the  salad  plants, 
even  up  here  in  the  North. 

In  Connecticut  they  provide  summer  shade 
for  weeds — at  any  rate,  for  the  weed  par  excel- 
lence. If  tobacco  is  thus  coddled,  why  shouldn't 
I  try  the  same  method  with  my  greens?  The 
price  of  cheesecloth  has  doubled  or  trebled,  like 
everything  else,  but  even  thus  it  is  vastly  cheaper 
than  buying  Trianons  or  Icebergs  at  half  a 
dollar  a  head.  Old  burlap  sacks,  supported  on 
shingles,  are  as  good  as  cheesecloth. 

EFFECTIVE  CROP   INSURANCE 

In  some  parts  of  Europe,  particularly  the 
Bavarian  highlands,  hailstorms  are  so  frequent 
and  so  destructive  that  most  of  the  gardeners 
and  farmers  take  out  a  special  hail  insurance  on 
their  crops.  I  do  not  know  if  one  could  get 
a  general  insurance  on  garden  crops  against 
drought,  plant  diseases,  frost,  and  other  calami- 


128      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         1? 

ties,  nor  would  I  personally  care  to  take  out 
such  an  insurance.  I  might  have  got  some  com- 
pensation money  in  1920  because  most  of  my 
salad  plants  went  to  seed  instead  of  heading; 
or  because  some  of  our  potatoes,  delayed  by  the 
lack  of  rain,  did  not  ripen  before  frost;  or  be- 
cause the  same  exceptional  lack  of  rain  (for 
seven  weeks)  made  my  corn  average  only  one 
ear  to  a  stalk  instead  of  two;  but  money  wasn't 
what  I  wanted  and  worked  for.  It  was  the 
extra-fancy  vegetables  that  I  wanted;  those 
you  cannot  buy. 

Farmers  seldom  raise  them,  because  they 
think  they  haven't  time  for  intensive  gardening. 
It  is  usually  pitiable  to  see  their  gardens,  when 
they  do  have  any:  a  row  of  ordinary  lettuce, 
too  crowded  to  be  able  to  head ;  a  row  of  equally 
overcrowded  cucumbers;  and  enough  peas  and 
beans  and  sweet  corn  to  last  a  week  or  two — 
that's  the  usual  thing.  The  rest  of  the  year  they 
eat  canned  vegetables  or  none  at  all. 

Contrast  that  with  my  garden.  In  spite  of 
seven  weeks'  drought,  we  had  seven  weeks 
of  sweet  corn  and  five  or  six  of  luscious  peas, 
with  enough  left  over  (as  well  as  of  beans, 
carrots,  and  beets)  for  preserving  in  jars, 
some  of  which  we  took  to  New  York,  while 
the  rest  up  here  lasted  us  till  harvest  time 
came  again.  Intensive  gardening  did  it — it 
was  a  sort  of  insurance — crop  insurance 
— far  better  than  commercial  insurance,  because 


«  HAPPY— RAIN  OR  SHINE         129 

it  insures  the  thing  you  want — vegetables  and 
not  money — unless,  of  course,  you  do  truck 
gardening  for  a  living,  which  alters  the  case. 

It  was  because  I  practiced  the  methods  of 
intensive  gardening  that  I  was  insured  the 
worst  year  for  gardening  (in  Maine)  I  have 
ever  known.  In  putting  in  the  Bantam  corn, 
for  instance,  I  dug  for  each  hill  a  hole  a  foot 
deep  and  wide,  in  which  I  mixed  a  little  pulver- 
ized sheep  manure  and  bone  meal  (wood  ashes 
do  not  seem  to  help  corn)  with  the  (previously 
manured)  soil.  Then,  with  my  finger,  I  made 
seven  little  holes  for  seven  kernels  of  corn 
which  had  soaked  in  water  overnight.  Then  I 
dug  down  with  my  trowel  for  some  moist  soil 
and  put  it  over  the  kernels,  after  which,  with 
my  foot  or  the  flat  end  of  the  hoe  I  firmed  the 
soil.  Then  I  wet  the  "hill"  thoroughly  (usually 
it  is  called  a  hill,  though  hilling  is  no  longer 
practiced  by  up-to-date  corn  growers)  and 
finally  I  hoed  an  inch  of  dry  soil  over  the  whole 
to  form  a  dust  mulch  to  keep  in  the  moisture. 
As  all  of  the  seven  kernels  sprouted,  three  were 
pulled  out  when  they  were  six  inches  high,  the 
strongest  being  left. 

MAKE   INTENSIVE   GARDENING   COMPULSORY! 

It  was  slow  work,  no  doubt — but  I  got  my 
corn;  I  was  insured  against  total  loss.  In  a 
favorable  season  most  of  my  painstaking  work 
would  have  been  superfluous;  but  don't  you 


130      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

insure  your  house,  though  you  feel  sure  it  won't 
burn  up?  That  season  there  were  few  families 
in  this  neighborhood  whose  corn  didn't  literally 
burn  up  from  the  sun's  heat.  It  was  pitiable  to 
see  it  curl  up  its  leaves  (plants  know  a  thing  or 
two)  so  as  to  have  less  surface  exposed  to  the 
desiccating  sun,  unfurling  again  when  the  grate- 
ful coolness  of  the  night  and  its  dew  came. 

If  that  summer  was  the  least  favorable  for 
gardening  I  have  ever  known,  I  remember  one 
summer  in  this  neighborhood  which  was  simply 
ideal — no  scorching  heat,  and  rain  regularly 
whenever  it  was  needed.  There  was  only  one 
thing  to  mar  my  happiness — I  had  bought  a 
fine  new  hose  and  had  no  use  for  it  what- 
ever! 

In  transplanting  my  Trianons  and  Icebergs 
and  Burbank  chards  I,  of  course,  put  them  in 
according  to  the  intensive  method,  which  ought 
to  be  enforced  on  all  gardeners  by  a  new  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution.  That  means  scooping 
out  a  hole  with  the  trowel  for  each  plant  and 
enriching  the  soil  with  a  little  dried  hen  or  sheep 
manure,  with  some  crumbled  cow  manure  or  a 
leaf  mold  below  to  make  a  cool  summer  bed  for 
the  lowest  roots.  Of  course  the  plants  had 
been  started  in  the  box  in  soil  which  adhered  to 
them  tightly  when  wet.  A  naked  root  is  hard 
to  transplant.  Imagine  my  indignation  one 
day  on  Barclay  Street,  New  York,  when  I  saw 
a  salesman  deliberately  shake  off  all  the  soil 


«  HAPPY— RAIN  OR  SHINE         131 

from  a  dozen  tomato  plants  he  was  selling  to  a 
green  suburbanite ! 

Naked  roots  can  be  made  to  grow  if  the  soil 
above  is  firmly  pressed  down  on  them  and  then 
liberally  watered  and  the  plant  shaded  with 
shingles  for  a  few  days.  Or  you  might  hold  a 
parasol  over  it  a  day  or  two. 

The  notion  that  lettuce  and  romaine  seedlings 
must  be  transplanted  if  you  want  them  to  head 
is  incorrect.  If  you  start  your  seeds  very  early 
in  a  box  or  cold  frame  they  must,  of  course,  be 
set  out;  but  usually  I  have  had  more  success 
in  my  head-hunting  expeditions  if  the  seeds 
were  planted  as  early  as  the  soil  can  be  spaded 
into  a  rich  and  easily  watered  spot  where  they 
can  be  left.  Volunteer  plants — that  is,  self- 
sown  plants — are  most  likely  of  all  to  head. 
Transplanting,  no  matter  how  carefully  done,  is 
likely  to  delay  heading  a  week  or  longer,  and  in 
raising  vegetables  of  all  kinds  we  don't  want 
any  speed  limit.  If  you  don't  believe  this, 
read  the  next  chapter  and  be  convinced. 


CHAPTER    XIV.     A   NEW   TIME^ 
TABLE    FOR   VEGETABLES 

IN  California  I  once  heard  an   extraordinary 
story  about   a   Burbank   watermelon.     One 
spring  morning  a  man   planted  some  seeds 
in  his  ranch  and  then  worked   on   another 
part   of   it.     When   he    got   home    in    the 
evening  he  found   that   the   vine   had    got 
ahead  of  him  and  deposited  a  ripe  melon  on  his 
doorstep.     The  ranch  was  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  his  house.    One  version  of  the  story  says 
half  a  mile,  but  that's  absurd. 

I  am  convinced  that  Mark  Twain  wasn't 
entirely  in  his  right  mind  when  he  wrote  an 
article  for  an  agricultural  paper  (of  which  he 
was  temporary  editor)  in  which  he  said  that 
"turnips  should  never  be  pulled;  it  injures 
them.  It  is  much  better  to  send  a  boy  up  and 
let  him  shake  the  tree." 

Mark  Twain  was  certainly  an  ass.  He  didn't 
know  the  first  rudiments  of  horticulture.  He 
also  wrote  that  "the  guano  is  a  fine  bird,  but 
great  care  is  necessary  in  rearing  it";  that 
farmers  should  plant  their  buckwheat  cakes  in 
July  instead  of  August;  and  that  "the  pumpkin 
as  a  shade  tree  is  a  failure."  Holy  Moses! 
Can  you  beat  it? 

Evidently  all  these  things  came  to  the  fore  in 
my  brain  the  other  night  when  I  had  a  singular 
dream  which  made  me  supremely  happy.  I 


IB  TIMING  VEGETABLES  133 

am  particularly  fond  of  cantaloupes,  but  can't 
raise  them  up  here  because,  as  I  have  said 
before,  the  nights  are  too  cold  and  the  season 
is  too  short.  Well,  I  dreamed  that  I  was  going  to 
have  for  breakfast  ripe  melons  raised  in  my 
garden  from  seed  in  three  weeks.  How  did  I 
do  it,  when  the  time-table  says  three  months? 
By  crossing  the  coy  and  dilatory  cantaloupe 
with  the  forward  and  prolific  cucumber,  and 
then  hybridizing  the  new  vine  with  the  radish, 
which  is  ready  to  eat  in  three  weeks  after  the 
seed  is  put  in  the  ground.  I  had  read  in  Bur- 
bank's  books  that  almost  anything  can  be  done 
in  the  way  of  training  and  intermarrying  vege- 
tables, keeping  the  good  qualities  of  each  while 
eliminating  the  bad  ones;  and  my  experiment 
didn't,  in  my  dream,  seem  much  more  impossible 
than  his  trick  of  "growing  potatoes  on  tomato- 
vines."  But  when  I  looked  up  his  seventh 
volume,  which  is  concerned  with  the  higher 
education  of  vegetables,  I  found  that,  in  his 
experience,  the  cucumber  "refuses  to  hybridize 
with  other  melons";  and  thus  my  scheme  was 
shattered. 

I  am  now  considering  the  possibility  of  graft- 
ing melon  vines  on  witch-grass  roots,  which  seem 
to  travel  at  the  approximate  rate  of  a  yard  a 
day  while  sending  up  fresh  roots  every  three 
inches.  When  that  is  accomplished  I  should 
like  to  see  anyone  get  ahead  of  me  in  the 
melon  market.  There's  millions  in  it. 


134      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         1? 

STOP   THE  LOAFING 

To  quit  fooling,  it  is  evident  that  it  would  be 
a  great  thing  if  the  time  for  the  growing  and 
ripening  of  melons,  and  all  other  vegetables, 
could  be  halved  and  quartered  and  eighthed. 
The  quicker  a  vegetable  grows  the  more  tender 
and  succulent  it  is  for  the  table.  Plenty  of 
manure  and  water  will  do  wonders,  as  the  Paris 
market  gardeners  in  particular  have  shown,  and 
astonishing  accelerations  are  also  due  to  the 
intelligent  and  frequent  use  of  some  chemical 
fertilizers,  notably  nitrate  of  soda — or,  more 
rapid  still,  nitrate  of  ammonia,  the  fastest  of 
all  fertilizers  (if  you  are  so  lucky  as  to  get  a 
pure  sample);  but  that  is  not  enough.  The 
whole  time-table  of  vegetable  growth  in  the 
garden  is  outmoded  and  should  be  smashed  to 
smithereens. 

Why  should  carrots  and  beets  and  cabbage 
and  lettuce  and  all  the  rest  of  the  kitchen  plants 
loaf  around  from  two  to  three  months,  exposed 
to  all  the  dangers  of  drought  and  frost  and 
disease  and  blight  and  insect  pests,  before  they 
are  ripe  for  the  table?  It's  simply  absurd. 
The  government  has  dozens  of  expensive  experi- 
mental stations  for  mending  such  matters,  but 
for  the  most  part  the  officials  seem  to  be  as 
much  given  to  loafing  as  the  lazy  plants.  Get 
a  move  on  yourselves,  gentlemen,  and  on  the 
vegetables !  That's  my  advice. 

On  another  page  I  have  referred  to  the  Aus- 


*$  TIMING  VEGETABLES  135 

tralian  and  American  benefactors  who  have 
evolved  a  new  race  of  sweet  peas  which  come 
into  bloom  five  or  six  weeks  sooner  than  the 
older  sorts,  without  being  inferior  in  beauty. 
Why  shouldn't  the  same  methods  and  pains 
applied  to  the  edible  peas  do  the  same  thing  for 
them?  Why  allow  them  to  vegetate  and  lounge 
and  dilly-dally  till  the  July  or  August  sun 
broils  their  tender  roots  to  tinder?  It  is  easy 
to  breed  a  faster  race  by  selecting,  year  after 
year,  those  of  the  pods  which  ripen  first,  and 
planting  those  exclusively. 

In  quality  (tenderness  and  flavor)  our  garden 
peas  leave  little  to  be  desired.  The  only  thing 
to  regret  is  that  the  very  best  of  them  all  bears 
the  name  "Senator,"  for  sarcasm  is  out  of 
place  in  the  garden.  Much  as  I  relish  the 
Senators  (the  peas,  I  mean),  I  hope  to  see  them 
dethroned  by  the  marvelous  variety  known  as 
Quite  Content.  These  are  ahead  of  any  French 
pet  its  pois  I  have  ever  eaten,  and  they  are  the 
opposite  of  pet  its.  Taller  than  any  other  peas 
grown  (you  need  chicken  wire  to  support  them), 
the  pods  and  the  peas  in  them  are  much  larger 
than  any  others,  yet  they  are  tender  and 
luscious. 

UNSTRINGING  THE  BEANS 

While  American  peas  seem  to  me  superior  in 
flavor  to  the  European  (I  once  asked  a  London 
waiter  why  the  peas  had  been  flavored  with 
mint,  and  he  answered,  "Peas  'ave  no  flavor, 


136      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

sir"),  our  beans  leave  a  good  deal  to  be  desired 
in  rapidity  of  growth  and  otherwise.  Every 
year  I  plant  some  new  variety,  but  always  feel 
I  must  "try,  try  again."  The  Parisians  have  a 
kind  which  is  very  much  more  tasty.  It  is  an 
insignificant-looking  thing,  small  and  "rusty," 
but,  oh,  the  flavor!  When  David  Burpee  wrote 
me,  in  1920,  he  was  going  to  Europe,  I  implored 
him  to  import  this  variety  and  make  it  popular 
over  here,  just  as  his  father,  W.  Atlee  Burpee, 
did  the  insignificant-looking  Golden  Bantam  corn. 

Burpee  also  introduced  the  stringless  pod 
bean,  America's  great  contribution  to  beandom. 
Its  originator  was  a  man  whose  name — Calvin 
N.  Keeney — is  dear  to  all  epicures,  because  he 
eliminated  from  the  beans  the  bothersome 
strings  which  always  got  between  the  teeth — 
unless  the  cook  had  patiently  removed  them, 
which  she  often  failed  to  do.  The  process  of 
removing  the  strings  from  the  different  varieties 
of  beans  (there  are  hundreds  of  them)  is  still 
going  on ;  don't,  for  mercy's  sake,  grow  any  but 
the  stringless  in  your  garden.  Some  of  them 
are  now  in  all  seed  catalogues,  while  the  most 
advanced  list  chiefly  the  stringless.  The  world 
do  move! 

With  three  of  our  most  important  vegetables — 
corn,  tomatoes,  and  potatoes — the  plant  breed- 
ers have  been  busy  in  recent  years  in  reducing 
the  time  needed  for  growth  and  ripening. 
Except  in  the  South,  it  is  not  customary  to  sow 


*$  TIMING  VEGETABLES  137 

the  seeds  of  tomatoes  in  the  garden;  to  get  the 
ripe  fruit  in  reasonable  time  it  is  necessary  to 
start  the  plants  in  a  greenhouse  and  transplant 
them  when  frost  no  longer  threatens.  The 
ripening  can  be  further  accelerated  by  training 
the  plants  to  stakes  and  removing  all  side 
branches;  but  this  is  not  enough.  In  our 
Northern  states  it  is  folly  to  plant  any  but  the 
earliest  of  the  varieties.  Earliana  is  favored  by 
market  gardeners,  but  for  the  home  garden  | 
Chalk's  Jewel  or  Baer  are  better  because  the  I 
tomatoes  do  not  all  ripen  at  once.  Earlier  still  / 
than  these — often  by  several  weeks — is  the  Bur- 
bank  tomato,  which  I  have  found  the  most 
satisfactory  in  my  garden  for  earliness  and 
quality.  I  can  indorse  the  verdict  of  a  Long 
Island  enthusiast:  "Most  perfect  in  shape  and 
color,  the  least  vine,  the  most  fruit,  the  longest 
in  bearing,  the  least  acid,  the  sweetest  tomato." 
It  would  be  impossible  in  Maine  to  do  what 
has  been  done  with  the  Burbank  tomato  in 
California — grow,  from  seeds  ripened  in  June,  a 
second  crop  the  same  summer!  But  I  have 
planted  Burbank  seeds  in  the  garden  in  June 
and  picked  ripe  tomatoes  from  the  vines, 
although  the  frostless  season  in  this  state  is  only 
three  months.  That,  I  fancy,  is  a  "record." 

THREE   WEEKS'   POTATOES 

With   the   famous   Burbank  potato   I   have 
been  less  successful.    The  plants  grow  here  with 


138      GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         *» 

tropical  luxuriance,  and  the  elongated  and  beau- 
tiful potatoes  attain  a  large  size,  but  they  do 
not  quite  ripen  before  frost.  After  several  trials 
I  wrote  to  Mr.  Burbank  about  an  earlier  variety 
with  his  trade-mark,  telling  him  also  I  hadn't 
been  very  successful  with  his  Iceland  cucum- 
bers. He  replied:  "Cucumbers  and  melons 
like  a  great  amount  of  water  and  a  great  amount 
of  ammoniacal  manure.  Then  they  will  do 
simply  wonders.  There  is  no  Early  Burbank 
potato.  The  Early  Rose  is  about  the  sweetest 
and  most  satisfactory  early  potato,  but  it  is  not 
a  very  heavy  yielder." 

The  Early  Rose  was  the  ancestor  of  the  Bur- 
bank,  which,  while  evidently  not  the  best  for 
a  mountainous  region,  is  the  potato  for  the 
Pacific  coast  (see  an  interesting  list  of  favorites 
of  various  states  in  Samuel  Eraser's  book  on  the 
potato).  Salzer's  Six  Weeks  does  not  ripen  in 
half  the  usual  time,  but  it  is  surprisingly  early 
and  of  the  finest  quality.  It  pays  to  buy  pedi- 
greed seed. 

Inasmuch  as  the  growing  time  of  the  potato 
in  the  garden  can  also  be  reduced  by  a  fortnight 
or  more  by  starting  the  tubers  in  the  house,  a 
Six  Weeks  variety  ought  to  be  reducible  to  the 
radish  standard  by  three  weeks  from  planting 
to  the  table;  so,  after  all,  my  dream  about  the 
three-week  melons  may  have  had  prophetic 
significance! 

Corn,  too,  can  be  accelerated  by  starting  it  in 


*»  TIMING  VEGETABLES  139 

the  house.  Burbank  relates  (Vol.  VIII,  p.  29) 
how  he  did  it  and  made  profits  which  enabled 
him  to,  fortunately,  make  his  home  in  Cali- 
fornia.1 

Two  or  three  weeks  can  easily  be  saved  this 
way.  But  such  gains  count  for  less  than  the 
breeding  of  new  early  varieties.  The  Golden 
Bantam  owes  its  standing  as  the  favorite  of  all 
sweet  corns  to  its  delicious  flavor.  But  its 
earliness  also  has  been  an  asset;  and  this  earli- 
ness  it  owes  largely  to  its  not  wasting  time  in 
growing  seven-foot  stalks.  "The  ear's  the 
thing!"  is  its  motto,  and  thus  it  has  started  a 
new  era. 

But  it  is  time  to  return  to  the  flower  garden. 
I  am  so  eager  to  have  all  my  readers  share  the 
pleasures  I  have  derived  from  my  poppy,  sweet 
pea,  and  pansy  beds,  in  particular,  that  I  will 
give  a  whole  chapter  to  each  of  them. 

1  A  writer  in  Good  Housekeeping  relates  this:  "We  put  some 
seed  in  wet  sawdust  in  a  shallow  dish  and  placed  it  over  the  kitchen 
range.  The  seed  sprouted  vigorously.  When  the  tops  were  three 
inches  or  so  in  height  we  set  the  plants  out  in  the  ground.  .  .  .  Not 
a  single  plant  died  of  the  one  hundred  we  handled  this  way,  and  we 
had  a  fine  stand  of  corn." 


CHAPTER    XV.     AN    OPIUM 
DREAM    OF   NEW   POPPIES 

ONCE  upon  a  time  I  entered  one  of 
the  large  seed  stores  on  Barclay 
Street,  New  York,  at  a  moment 
when  all  the  clerks  (or  should  I 
say   sales   persons?)  happened   to 
be  busy.    So  I  listened  to  what  one 
of  them,  a  very  pretty  girl,  was  saying  to  a  man 
who  asked  her  about  adding  some  poppy  seeds  to 
his  list.     She  advised  him  not  to  do  so,  because 
it  wasn't  worth  while.     "The  wind,"  she  said, 
"always  destroys  the  flowers  in  a  short  time." 

This  was  too  much  for  a  poppy  enthusiast 
and  specialist  like  myself,  who  believes  that  if 
there  are  three  kinds  of  flowers  that  absolutely 
must  be  in  every  garden  poppies  are  one  of 
them,  the  other  two  being  sweet  peas  and 
pansies.  With  an  apology  to  the  pretty  girl,  I 
informed  the  man  that  I  was  an  old  gardener 
and  that  I  could  give  him  the  names  of  poppies 
that  survived  even  the  rude  winds  of  the  White 
Mountains.  He,  of  course,  thanked  me  politely 
and  asked  me  the  names  of  those  varieties?  He 
did  nothing  of  the  sort.  He  simply  stared  at  me 
superciliously  (perhaps  he  did  not  wish  to 
embarrass  the  girl)  and  said  not  a  word;  nor 
did  he  buy  any  poppy  seeds,  foolish  man!  One 
thing  he  did  for  me,  though — he  taught  me  for 
all  time  to  mind  my  own  business. 
To-day  it  is  my  business  to  talk  about  the  pop- 


•S       A  DREAM  OF  NEW  POPPIES     141 

pies  which  flourish  so  luxuriantly  even  in  this  blus- 
tering mountainous  region.  I  admit  that  a  boister- 
ous wind  does  sometimes  mar  the  day's  blossoms, 
but  to  give  up  poppies  entirely  for  that  reason 
would  be  about  as  sensible  as  giving  up  raising 
cherries  because  sometimes  they  are  injured  by 
excessive  rain.  It  would,  in  fact,  be  much  worse, 
because,  while  the  cherries  are  ruined  for  the 
season,  there  is  a  new  crop  of  poppies  every  day. 
Of  the  many  varieties  of  poppies  offered  by 
the  seedsmen  I  admire  and  recommend  particu- 
larly seven:  the  Iceland,  Oriental,  Darwin, 
Opium,  Shirley,  California,  and  Silver  Lining. 
The  first  of  them  to  bloom  in  spring  is  the 
Iceland,  which,  started  in  the  late  summer  of 
the  preceding  year,  greets  us  when  we  arrive  in 
May,  and  with  a  little  attention  now  and  then 
blooms  all  summer,  gracefully  holding  up  its 
yellow,  orange,  and  white  blossoms  on  long 
stems.  Some  of  the  recent  hybrids — pale  yellow 
outside,  pale  flesh  inside — are  particularly  en- 
gaging; so  are  the  buds,  covered  with  soft  black 
fur.  I  shall  never  forget  the  sight  of  the  long 
rows  of  Iceland  poppies  in  front  of  the  hotel  at 
Lake  Louise  in  the  Canadian  Rockies,  where 
they  seemed  very  much  at  home  and  happy. 
Though  of  the  North,  they  do  not  shun  the  sun. 

ORIENTAL,   DARWIN,   AND   SILVER  LINING 

Giants  among  the  poppy  blossoms  are  the 
Orientals,  which  also  bloom  early  in  spring,  and 
10 


142      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

the  Opium;  Burbank  has  had  Orientals  at 
Sebastopol  with  blossoms  measuring  almost  a 
foot  across;  but  even  when  much  smaller  they 
daze  the  color  sense  with  a  cardinal  so  bright 
as  to  be  vibrant  to  the  eye.  The  passion  for 
varied  and  improved  forms  and  colors  has,  of 
course,  not  passed  by  these  poppies,  which  may 
now  be  admired  in  crimson,  scarlet,  yellowish, 
apricot  pink,  and  dull  white.  The  Oriental 
poppy  is  a  perennial  and  almost  indestructible. 
Those  who  don't  know  its  habits  are  sometimes 
dismayed  to  find  all  traces  of  the  plants  gone  in 
midsummer;  but  in  the  autumn  they  come  up 
again  fresh  and  smiling.  Unlike  other  poppies, 
they  transplant  easily. 

Of  the  Opium  poppies  the  finest  is  the  un- 
fringed,  snow-white  variety.  Burpee  has  it. 
It  is  divinely  tall,  holding  up,  a  foot  or  more 
above  other  poppies,  its  enormous  cup — it 
might  be  the  Cup  of  the  Holy  Grail.  The  opium 
exudes  from  the  seed  capsules.  But  if  you 
smoke  it  you  could  hardly  dream  of  more 
marvelous  new  poppies  than  I  am  writing  about. 

I  have  often  wondered  why  Dreer  is  appar- 
ently the  only  seedsman  who  offers  the  Darwin, 
one  of  the  most  dazzlingly  beautiful  of  all 
poppies,  as  noteworthy  and  unique  as  the 
popular  Darwin  tulips.  It  has  a  rich,  satiny 
texture;  some  of  the  flowers  have  petals  of  a 
rich,  reddish,  plum  color,  or  heliotrope,  some- 
times shading  into  lighter  bands  on  the  edge; 


¥       A  DREAM  OF  NEW  POPPIES     143 

others,  even  more  lovely,  are  crimson  (or  royal 
purple)  with  dark  plum-colored  centers.  The 
ring  of  grayish-green  pollen  adds  much  to  their 
beauty.  These  poppies  should  be  more  widely 
known.  Mine  were  suddenly  struck  by  blight 
last  year,  but  spraying  with  pyrox  saved 
them. 

The  hideous  name  Eschscholtzia,  given  to  the 
exquisite  California  poppy,  excites  my  wrath 
almost  as  much  as  the  name  Rainier,  still  be- 
stowed on  our  glorious  Mount  Tacoma.  Rainier 
was  an  enemy  admiral  who  fought  the  forces  of 
George  Washington,  and  for  this  sublime  act  we 
still  honor  him  by  giving  his  name  to  our 
sublimest  snow  peak,  with  the  connivance  of 
that  ludicrous  and  entirely  superfluous  body,  the 
Society  of  Geographic  Names  in  Washington 
city,  although  both  branches  of  the  Legislature 
in  Washington  state,  where  this  mountain  is 
located — the  old  Indian  name  is  Tacoma,  or 
Tahoma — by  a  large  majority  begged  that 
society  to  give  up  the  name  Rainier,  which, 
under  the  circumstances,  is  worse  than  a  joke. 
Equally  maltreated  is  the  California  poppy. 
Eschscholtz  was  the  surgeon  of  a  Russian  ship 
which  explored  the  Western  coast  in  1815. 

It  is  high  time  for  California  to  find  a  more 
musical  and  appropriate  name  for  its  state 
flower,  especially  now  that  Luther  Burbank  has 
transformed  some  of  these  golden  cups,  which 
adorn  the  foothills  by  the  billions  in  spring,  into 


144      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

crimson,  white,  and  fiery-red  blossoms  of  rare 
charm  to  garden  epicures.  How  he  did  it  is  no 
secret;  nature  might,  or  might  not,  have  done 
in  ten  thousand  years  what  he  did  in  ten. 
Starting  with  freaks,  or  sports — that  is,  golden 
poppies  that  accidentally  had  a  white  or  red 
line — he  enlarged  those  streaks  by  selection, 
each  generation  having  a  little  more  white  or 
red,  until  the  yellow  was  eliminated  entirely. 

No  less  remarkable  and  enchanting  is  another 
of  Burbank's  creations — an  absolutely  new  thing 
under  the  sun — the  Silver  Lining  poppy.  Like 
many  other  novelties,  it  is  not  in  Burbank's 
own  seed  catalogue  because  he  sold  it  to  Burpee, 
who  thus  felicitously  describes  it:  "single  flow- 
ers; rich  scarlet,  spotted  with  black;  each  spot 
appears  to  be  covered  with  a  shield  of  white 
tissue  paper;  altogether  unique."  Note  also 
the  soft,  dull-green  tint  of  the  black  spot  under 
the  shield. 

In  his  Vol.  IX,  p.  123,  Burbank  tells  how  he 
developed  this  Silver  Lining  from  an  accidental 
white  line  in  one  flower  between  the  black 
center  and  the  crimson  petal.  While  this  strik- 
ing curiosity  is  not  as  widely  known  as  it  should 
be,  Burbank's  most  glorious  creation  in  the 
poppy  field  is,  fortunately,  to  be  seen  in  many 
thousands  of  gardens — the  improved  Shirley. 
He  was  not  the  first  to  educate  this  poppy. 
He  himself  relates,  in  the  volume  just  referred 
to  (pp.  107-120),  how  an  English  clergyman, 


*$        A   DREAM   OF   NEW  POPPIES     145 

the  Rev.  W.  Wilks,  discovered  in  1880  a  com- 
mon red  field,  or  corn,  poppy  which  had  a  narrow 
edge  of  white.  This  he  developed  by  selection 
till  he  had  a  white  poppy,  eliminating  also  the 
black  central  portion.  Like  everybody  else, 
Burbank  admired  this  novelty — so  much  so 
that  he  undertook  to  make  the  flowers  larger, 
more  beautiful  in  shape,  finer  in  texture,  and 
much  more  varied  and  delicate  in  color.  He 
chose  the  flowers  that  showed  the  lighter  shades 
of  scarlet,  crimson,  pink,  and  white. 

After  years  of  experimenting  on  a  large  scale, 
with  the  aid  of  five  assistants,  he  produced, 
among  others,  a  strain  of  Shirleys  of  salmon  or 
deep  yellowish-pink  color,  which  were  intro- 
duced as  the ' ' Sunset  Shades. ' '  More  remarkable 
was  the  Celeste,  which,  seen  in  mass,  presented 
the  aspect  of  uniform  blueness.  This  was 
nothing  short  of  a  creation — a  miracle;  nobody, 
before  Mr.  Burbank  launched  this  flower,  had 
ever  seen  a  blue  poppy.  He  developed  it  from 
a  "sport,"  a  flower  in  which  he  detected,  under- 
lying the  normal  color,  a  smokiness  suggestive 
of  a  half-concealed  blue  pigmentation. l 

BURBANK'S  ART  SHIRLEYS 

The  Shirley  bed  on  our  lawn,  three  feet  wide 
and  twenty  feet  long,  had  this  morning  more 


1  Burbank  no  longer  offers  the  blue  Shirley  separately,  but  Drew 
now  has  it.  I  found  it,  in  1921,  lovelier,  larger,  and  deeper  in  color 
than  ever.  Don't  fail  to  get  it! 


146      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

than  three  hundred  large  blossoms  of  bewildering 
beauty  and  astonishing  variety  and  blending  of 
tints.  The  seeds  I  got,  of  course,  from  Mr.  Bur- 
bank  himself.  They  embody  all  the  latest 
improvements:  flowers  thin  as  tissue  paper, 
yet  of  firm  texture,  and  artistically  waved  and 
crinkled,  in  strong  contrast  with  the  smooth 
petals  of  the  original  English  Shirleys.  They  are 
the  perfected  Shirley  poppies  and  Art  poppies  of 
Burbank's  seed  book. 

Silk  crepe  seems  like  common  calico  in  com- 
parison with  these  delicate  poppy  petals.  In 
showing  my  Shirley  bed  to  girls  I  often  ask: 
"How  would  you  like  to  have  a  ball  dress  made 
of  these?  Which  color,  please — and  how  many 
yards?" 

My  wife  has  briefly  sketched  for  me  a  few  of 
the  varieties:  "Cup,  flame  color,  yellow  pollen; 
white,  overlaid  with  fine  veins  of  pale  flame 
color;  white,  with  deep  flame  edge;  white,  with 
rose  edge;  pale  rose;  deep  rose;  clear  white, 
yellow  pollen;  white,  with  faintest  line  of  pur- 
plish pink  on  the  edge ;  white,  veined  heavily  with 
deep  purple,  grass-green  pollen;  scarlet  outer 
petals,  deep  pink  inner  ones;  deep  coral  pink; 
scarlet,  edged  with  white,  with  black  spots;  a 
Maltese  cross  edged  with  white,  olive-green  pol- 
len; clear  shell  pink;  deep  cardinal,  black  spots; 
white,  with  center  streaked  with  pale  pink, 
brown  anthers,  yellow  pollen;  white,  with  deep 
heliotrope  cross,  green  pollen;  clear  white,  green 


1?        A  DREAM   OF   NEW  POPPIES     147 

pollen;  flesh-colored  petal,  sometimes  edged  with 
deeper  shade,  with  four  brownish-gray  spots, 
setting  off  buttercup-yellow  pollen."  There  are 
many  others. 

HOW  TO   RAISE  FAIRY  POPPIES 

The  Japanese  have  their  flower  gardens  back 
of  the  house,  where  no  one  but  themselves  can 
enjoy  them.  I  prefer  the  American  way.  My 
poppy  bed  is  on  the  lawn  in  front  of  the  house, 
where  everyone  from  the  road  can  see  it. 
It  makes  me  happy  to  see  automobiles  slow  up 
and  hear  cries  of:  "Oh,  look!  See  those  flow- 
ers!" I  may  add  that  this  bed  includes,  besides 
twenty  feet  of  Shirleys,  rows  of  other  poppies 
of  the  Big  Seven;  also  some  double  poppies. 
The  Shrimp-pink  Mikado  and  Fordhook  Fairies 
are  as  fine  as  peonies  or  chrysanthemums,  but 
double  Shirleys  or  Darwins  are  not  to  be  toler- 
ated any  more  than  double  pansies  or  sweet 
peas. 

My  success  with  these  delicate  poppies  in 
the  rude  mountain  climate  of  this  part  of  Maine 
shows  that  they  are  suitable  for  all  regions.  Of 
course,  we  cannot  expect  them  to  get  along  with 
as  little  care  as  on  the  Pacific  coast.  In  Oregon, 
one  summer,  I  sowed  a  number  of  Shirleys  in  my 
oldest  sister's  garden.  When  they  had  gone  by 
I  gathered  the  capsules  and  scattered  the  seeds 
over  her  lawn.  To  my  surprise,  she  wrote  me 
the  following  spring  that  these  seeds  had  germi- 


148      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

nated  and  given  her  a  splendid  crop  of  Bur- 
banks  ! 

In  Maine  that  sort  of  thing  is  not  to  be 
expected;  a  poppy  bed  like  mine  means  a  lot  of 
trouble — which  it  repays  a  hundredfold.  I 
spade  the  ground  nearly  two  feet  deep,  enrich 
it  with  old  stable  manure  or  leaf  mold  and  a 
good  general  fertilizer  plus  wood  ashes.  When 
the  ground  has  been  firmed  I  scatter  the  seeds, 
sift  on  a  little  soil,  firm  again,  put  over  it  burlap 
sacks,  and  water  through  them  till  the  plants 
are  up.  If  the  weather  is  dry  the  babes,  after 
the  sacks  are  removed  (don't  leave  them  on  a 
minute  too  long)  must  have  water  once  daily — 
sometimes  twice.  Thin  out  mercilessly,  at  first 
two  inches  apart,  then  to  five  or  six  or  more. 

You  may  have  heard  of  the  man  who  said  his 
family  of  five  lived  in  one  room,  which  would  be 
all  right  if  his  wife  didn't  insist  on  taking  in 
lodgers.  Don't  crowd  your  plants  like  that  or 
you  won't  have  any  poppies  worth  looking  at. 
And  two  more  very  important  points:  In  most 
gardens  poppies  last  only  two  or  three  weeks. 
I  make  mine  last  six  or  seven  weeks  (though 
toward  the  end  they  get  smaller)  by  rejuvenating 
the  soil  once  a  week,  after  they  begin  to  blossom, 
with  liquid  fertilizer  after  a  rain  or  a  thorough 
soaking  with  the  hose.  By  following  this 
method  Mrs.  Theodore  Thomas  once  counted 
150  successive  blossoms  on  one  of  her  plants! 
Finally,  don't  let  a  single  blossom  go  to  seed. 


*»        A  DREAM   OF   NEW  POPPIES     149 

Every  other  evening  cut  all  the  blossoms  that 
begin  to  fade  and  you  will  be  rewarded  in  the 
morning  with  a  few  hundred  more  of  the  ravish- 
ing beauties.  It  seems  like  a  dream. 

P.S. — If  you  haven't  time  to  go  to  all  the 
trouble  indicated  in  the  foregoing,  have  some  of 
Burbanks's  Art  Shirleys  (which  you  can  get 
only  from  him),  anyhow.  Scatter  the  seeds 
anywhere,  and  be  sure  to  have  them  in  your 
mixed  bed.  They  give  me  so  much  pleasure 
that  I  have  three  successive  sowings  every 
summer.  Picked  very  early  in  the  morning, 
they  make  ravishing  bouquets  for  the  house 
which  will  last  several  days  if  you  stick  an  inch 
of  the  stems  in  boiling  water  for  half  a  minute 
immediately  after  picking. 


CHAPTER    XVI.        TWO    THOU- 
SAND ACRES  OF  SWEET   PEAS 

ADTHER     opium     dream    of    fairy- 
land,   or    can    you,    when    awake, 
imagine    it — two    thousand    acres 
of    voluptuous     fragrance    exhaled 
by    millions     of     sweet      peas     of 
every    conceivable    hue?      Perhaps 
you  can  if  you  ever  have  had  the  good  luck  to 
be  in  the  Riviera,  between  Cannes  and  Nice,  at 
the  time  when  the  roses  or  jasmines,  the  jon- 
quils or  violets,  are  ready  to  be  plucked  by  the 
ton  for  the  manufacture  of  natural  perfumery. 
The  two  thousand  acres  of  sweet  peas  are  not 
grown  for  their  fragrance,  however;    they  are 
raised  for  seed. 

California,  which  boasts  that  many  acres  of 
sweet  peas — one  Eastern  firm  alone  has  three 
hundred  near  Santa  Barbara — grows  at  least 
seventy-five  of  every  hundred  pounds  of  sweet- 
pea  seeds  used  all  over  the  world.  Soil  and 
climate  are  just  right;  seed  can  be  sown  in 
November  or  December,  which  brings  the  blos- 
soms in  the  very  early  spring  before  the  sun 
reaches  that  scorching  intensity  which  often 
in  a  single  day  destroys  the  whole  crop. 

Fertilizer  is  not  needed,  and,  more  wonderful 
still,  rotation,  so  necessary  elsewhere,  is  not 
required!  "They  can  be  grown  year  after  year 
on  the  same  land,  often  producing  better  crops 
each  year,  provided,  of  course,  that  diseases  are 


^  ACRES  OF  SWEET  PEAS          151 

kept  out,"  as  J.  J.  Taubenhaus  remarks  in  his 
book  The  Culture  and  Diseases  of  the  Sweet 
Pea,  which  every  grower  of  what  is  at  present 
perhaps  the  most  popular  of  all  flowers  should 
have  for  advice. 

Not  all  places  in  California  are  equally  suitable 
for  sweet  peas.  The  ideal  spots  are  the  valleys 
where  the  fog  rolls  in  from  the  ocean  in  the 
evening,  keeping  the  air  moist  and  cool,  but 
satisfactory  results  can  be  achieved  almost 
anywhere  on  the  Pacific  coast. 

Maine  is  more  favorable  to  the  sweet  pea  than 
New  York  State  or  farther  south  till  you  reach 
a  latitude  where  the  seeds  can  be  planted  (as  in 
California)  in  the  autumn.  I  have  had  rows  in 
my  garden  up  here  with  vines  so  tall  that  I 
could  not  reach  their  tips  with  my  fingers,  and 
bearing  numberless  flowers.  But  the  plants  are 
cranky  and  fussy  everywhere.  While  they 
stand  a  light  frost  or  two,  they  must  be  care- 
fully guarded  against  scorching  heat,  such  as 
we  have  occasionally  in  August,  July,  or  even 
June  and  September.  How?  Not  by  shading 
the  vines — they  must  be  out  in  the  open — but 
by  keeping  the  roots  at  cellar  temperature. 

Most  gardeners  who  fail  with  their  sweet 
peas — and  many,  unfortunately,  do — owe  their 
lack  of  success  usually  to  their  not  bearing  in 
mind  these  points:  The  ground  (neither  too 
sandy  nor  too  wet)  must  be  spaded  at  least  two 
feet  deep;  the  seeds  must  be  put  in  at  the 


152       GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *8? 

earliest  possible  chance  (this  cannot  be  over- 
emphasized), so  that  the  roots  may  get  far  down 
before  the  hot  days  come;  frequent  cultivation; 
a  thorough  watering  (way  down  to  the  lowest 
roots)  whenever  the  soil  dries  out;  and  mulching 
a  foot  wide  on  each  side  of  the  row  of  plants 
with  old  manure,  dead  leaves,  lawn  clippings, 
or  anything  that  will  keep  the  surface  of  the 
soil  cool  while  not  excluding  rain  water.  The 
essential  thing  is  that  the  roots  must  always  be 
cool  and  moist — not  wet,  for  that  excludes  the 
air,  which  roots  need  as  much  as  leaves  do. 

A  THOUSAND  NEW  VARIETIES 

Is  it  worth  while  to  go  to  all  this  trouble 
when  there  are  plenty  of  other  flowers  which  are 
not  so  exacting?  I  should  answer,  "Yes,"  even 
if  sweet  peas  were  no  better  now  than  they 
were  sixty  years  ago  (when  they  had  only  nine 
known  varieties),  for  think  of  the  thrilling 
fragrance!  But  since  that  time  more  than  a 
thousand  new  varieties  have  been  added,  mak- 
ing this  a  blossom  so  gorgeously  and  subtly 
varied  that  no  amount  of  work  is  too  great  for 
the  privilege  of  enjoying  it. 

Progress  in  beautifying  the  sweet  pea  has 
been  made  at  an  increasingly  rapid  pace,  and 
just  at  present  we  are  in  the  midst  of  the  most 
important  of  all  developments,  which  will  make 
it  possible — has,  indeed,  already  made  it  pos- 
sible— for  any  grower  of  this  fragrant  flower  to 


•8?  ACRES  OF  SWEET  PEAS          153 

enjoy  any  or  all  of  his  favorite  varieties  much 
earlier — and  later,  too — than  heretofore.  I  am 
alluding  to  the  early  or  winter  flowering  sweet 
peas,  the  sensation  of  the  last  seasons,  though 
little  has  been  written  about  them. 

To  understand  the  full  significance  of  this 
latest  development  in  sweet-peadom  we  must 
cast  just  a  glance  at  what  led  up  to  it.  The 
gardener  who  immortalized  himself  as  the  creator 
of  the  modern  sweet  pea  was  an  Englishman 
who  lived  to  his  eighty-second  year,  passionately 
devoted  to  his  specialty.  Henry  Eckford  was 
his  name,  a  venerable-looking  gentleman  whom 
to  see  is  to  love,  though  it  be  but  as  pictured 
(see  page  95  of  the  valuable  brochure  Sweet 
Peas  Up  to  Date,  by  America's  leading  special- 
ist, G.  W.  Kerr,  published  by  W.  Atlee  Burpee 
in  Philadelphia) .  As  Horace  J.  White  remarks  in 
his  beautifully  illustrated  little  volume  on  this 
flower:  "Eckford  undoubtedly  made  the  sweet 
pea  a  general  favorite,  and  the  sweet  pea  made 
the  name  of  Eckford  as  music  to  the  ears  of  all 
who  love  flowers."  Substance,  size,  form,  color, 
and  fragrance — all  were  improved  by  him.  Be- 
ginning early  in  the  'seventies,  he  had  before  the 
end  of  the  century  put  out  some  seventy-five 
new  varieties,  which  did  much  to  popularize 
the  sweet  pea  in  America,  too. 

And  yet  his  was  far  from  being  the  last  word 
on  this  fascinating  subject.  In  1901  Silas  Cole, 
gardener  to  Earl  Spencer,  created  a  tremendous 


154      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

sensation  when  he  showed  at  a  London  exhibi- 
tion the  Countess  Spencer,  the  parent  of  an 
entirely  new  kind,  distinctly  novel  in  form,  with 
standard  and  wings  not  only  larger,  but  beauti- 
fully frilled  and  waved.  Hybridizers  of  several 
continents  got  busy  on  these,  and  to-day  there 
are  more  than  six  hundred  named  varieties  of 
the  Spencer  sweet  pea  (see  Mr.  Kerr's  pamphlet 
for  a  full  list).  They  are  roughly  grouped  under 
nine  general  heads — white,  cream  or  primrose, 
light  pink,  cream  pink,  claret  and  maroon, 
pastel  shades,  picotee  edged,  bicolor,  striped, 
and  flaked.  Each  of  these  includes  an  endless 
variety  of  detail. 

THE  AUSTRALIAN  YARRAWA 

Australia  now  comes  to  the  fore  with  still 
another  type,  which,  in  the  opinion  of  many 
seedsmen,  will  supersede  the  Spencers,  just  as 
these  displaced  the  Grandiflora  type  of  the 
Eckford  era,  although  about  450  varieties  of 
it  still  linger  in  conservative  gardens.  Yar- 
rawa  is  the  name  of  an  Australian  sweet  pea 
which  is  remarkable  for  its  big  flowers,  long 
stems,  and  its  indifference  to  weather  and  tem- 
perature. Its  color  is  a  pleasing  shade  of  bright 
rose  pink,  wings  creamy  pink,  and  it  is  a  best 
seller  in  the  market.  Mr.  Kerr  has  lately  been 
using  it  in  almost  all  his  hybridizing  experiments 
in  developing  the  latest  type  of  sweet  peas — the 
Early  or  Winter  Flowering  Spencer  sweet  peas. 


«  ACRES  OF  SWEET  PEAS          155 

For  the  latest  information  regarding  these  I 
wrote  to  David  Burpee,  from  whose  answer  I 
cite  a  paragraph  which  is  illuminating: 

The  Australian  sweet-pea  growers  were  somewhat 
ahead  of  us  in  the  early  development  work  of  the  Early 
Flowering  Spencer  sweet  peas.  Ten  years  ago  our  Mr. 
George  W.  Kerr  started  to  cross  the  Standard  Spencer 
sweet  pea  with  the  old  Early  Grandiflora  sweet  pea  on 
our  Fordhook  Farms,  and  after  working  several  years 
he  managed  to  get  the  true  Spencer  type  into  the  Early 
Flowering  class,  and  he  has  been  working  along  that 
line  continuously  for  ten  years.  In  the  beginning  we,  of 
course,  had  to  use  the  Grandiflora  as  one  of  the  parents 
in  the  cross  so  as  to  get  the  early-flowering  habit  com- 
bined with  the  Spencer  form  of  flower.  We  are  now 
listing  forty-eight  varieties  of  the  Early  Flowering  sweet 
peas,  every  one  of  which  we  originated  ourselves  on  our 
Fordhook  Farms  in  Pennsylvania  or  on  our  Floredale 
Farm  in  California,  with  the  sole  exception  of  Yarrawa, 
one  of  the  first  Australian  varieties  which  we  imported 
to  this  country. 

Yes  [Mr.  Burpee  writes  in  reply  to  one  of  my  questions], 
it  is  possible  to  secure  all  the  colors  of  the  Standard 
Spencers  in  the  Early  Flowering  type.  In  fact,  we 
already  have  all  of  the  principal  colors  in  the  Early 
Flowering  peas,  and  in  addition  have  several  shades 
which  are  entirely  new  and  which  we  may  cross  in  the 
Standard  Spencers,  hoping  to  get  those  shades  also  in 
the  older  type. 

While  thus  retaining  all  the  beauty  of  the 
Spencers,  and  even  improving  on  it,  the  Early 
Flowering  type  has  the  tremendous  advantage 
of  coming  into  bloom  a  month  or  a  month  and 
a  half  sooner  than  the  Spencers,  now  so  deser- 


156      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *» 

vedly  popular,  and  continuing  in  bloom,  with 
intelligent  care,  four  months. 

During  the  war  interest  in  sweet  peas,  as  in 
all  flowers,  fell  off  considerably,  but  it  came 
back  again.  "We  sell  by  far  more  sweet-pea 
seeds  than  we  do  of  any  other  class  of  flowers," 
Mr.  Burpee  informs  me.  "I  have  not  yet,"  he 
adds,  "our  figures  for  the  1920  season,  but  in 
1919  we  sold  over  six  hundred  thousand  pack- 
ages of  sweet  peas." 

CULTURAL   DIRECTIONS 

In  England,  before  the  war,  more  than  forty 
tons  of  sweet-pea  seeds  were  planted  every  year. 
This  means  nearly  half  a  billion  separate  seeds ! 
Be  sure  and  get  some  for  your  garden  this 
year! 

And  before  you  plant  them  don't  fail  to  read 
the  directions  of  Mr.  Ken*  in  the  pamphlet 
Sweet  Peas  Up  To  Date,  to  which  I  have 
already  referred.  Of  special  importance  is  his 
advice  how  to  secure  perfect  germination;  al- 
though as  a  rule  there  is  no  difficulty,  especially 
if  the  seeds  are  soaked  overnight. 

I  have  given  up  growing  sweet  peas  in  rows. 
Clumps  on  the  lawn  are  far  better  because  it  is 
easier  to  maintain  a  cellar  temperature  for  the 
roots  and  keep  the  water  from  spreading  later- 
ally instead  of  going  down  to  the  business  end 
of  the  roots.  Make  each  hole  as  wide  as  you 
please  (sowing  the  seeds  along  the  outer  edge) 


«  ACRES  OF  SWEET  PEAS  157 

and  be  sure  to  make  it  two  feet  deep.  Fill  the 
lower  half  (in  the  autumn)  with  inverted  sods, 
tread  down  hard,  and  put  on  top  of  this  a  foot 
of  good  humus  mixed  with  a  few  trowelfuls  of 
wood  ashes.  Have  a  stout  pole  in  the  center 
and  use  brush  to  support  the  vines,  giving  them 
a  chance,  with  smaller  branches,  to  fasten  their 
tendrils  as  soon  as  they  are  ready.  My  clumps 
are  seven  feet  high  and  absurdly  floriferous. 
I  never  use  the  same  holes  two  years  in  suc- 
cession— Maine  isn't  California! 
11 


CHAPTER  XVII.     MODERN 
PANSIES  AND  THEIR  CULTURE 

MODERN  pansies  are  what  Mark 
Twain  would  have  called  violets 
with  a  college  education.  They 
far  excel  that  modest  wayside 
flower  in  size,  shape,  and  infinite 
variety  of  coloring,  and  their 
fragrance  is  even  more  thrilling. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  there  are  more  than 
two  hundred  species  of  violets,  this  last  claim 
may  seem  rash  and  reckless.  I  haven't  nosed 
them  all,  and  I  admit  that  there  are  few  things 
in  this  world  so  delicious  as  the  fragrance  of 
the  white  Parma  violet  (pallida  plena)  or  of 
the  tiny  Viola  blanda  which  hides  itself  along 
the  mossy,  cool  banks  of  trout  brooks  and 
rivulets;  but  at  any  rate  I  feel  that  the  poets, 
who  are  forever  raving  over  the  sweetness  of 
the  violets  (most  of  which  have  no  scent  at  all), 
have  failed  to  do  justice  to  the  pansy's  entrancing 
fragrance. 

To  throw  a  perfume  on  the  violet  is  called 
by  Shakespeare  "wasteful  and  ridiculous  excess," 
like  painting  the  lily,  gilding  refined  gold,  or 
adding  another  line  to  the  rainbow.  Shake- 
speare, Milton,  and  other  poets  also  refer  to  the 
pansies.  They  are  called  by  various  pet  names, 
such  as  love-in-idleness,  heartsease;  but  to 
their  fragrance  I  can  find  no  allusion  in  English 
poetry. 


^         MODERN  PANSY   CULTURE       159 

RECENT   IMPROVEMENTS 

Why  this  silence?  Probably  because  the 
pansy's  fragrance,  like  its  varied,  velvety  colors, 
is  a  product  of  modern  civilization  and  gradual 
intensification.  Gerard,  a  sixteenth-century 
writer,  said  of  the  pansies  of  his  time:  "smel 
they  have  little  or  none."  At  that  time  the 
only  colors  worn  by  the  heartsease  were  purple, 
yellow,  and  white  or  blue. 

These  old  pansies,  in  truth,  were  little  better 
than  the  Johnny -jump-ups  we  find  in  neglected 
gardens  to-day.  You  have  no  reason  to  envy 
your  grandmother.  She,  poor  dear,  never  saw 
any  pansies  bigger  or  more  alluringly  colored 
than  the  common  violets  of  the  shaded  road- 
side, and  not  so  fragrant.  Not  till  about  a  cen- 
tury ago  were  successful  attempts  made  to 
educate  this  flower  into  something  rich  and 
strange.  In  the  moist,  cool  climate  of  England, 
and  still  more  of  Scotland,  the  improved  varieties 
flourished. 

In  1830  a  man  named  Thompson,  gardener  to 
Lord  Gambier,  introduced  the  first  pansies 
with  the  blotches  on  the  lower  petals  which 
now  are  taken  for  granted  in  the  finest  flowers. 
He  also  succeeded  in  changing  the  blossoms, 
which  before  him  had  been  "lengthy  as  a  horse's 
head,"  into  the  rounder  shapes  we  admire.  He 
took  no  merit  to  himself  for  originating  the 
modern  pansy,  for,  as  he  said,  "it  was  entirely 
the  offspring  of  chance.  In  looking  one  morning 


160      GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         « 

over  a  collection  of  heaths,  I  was  struck,  to  use 
a  vulgar  expression,  all  of  a  heap,  by  seeing 
what  appeared  to  me  a  miniature  cat's  face 
steadfastly  gazing  at  me." 

The  real  Burbanks  of  the  pansy  were  still  to 
come.  In  the  middle  'seventies  of  the  last  cen- 
tury three  Frenchmen,  Gassier,  Bugnot,  and 
Trimardeau,  specialized  in  this  flower  and  got 
results  which  astonished  and  delighted  the 
whole  world,  just  as  Henry  Eckford  did  with 
his  new  and  improved  sweet  peas  in  England. 
The  names  of  these  French  pansy  educators 
are  still  preserved,  as  they  should  be,  in  our 
catalogues  of  flower  seeds.  The  Trimardeaus 
are  of  immense  size.  Gassier  achieved  unique 
results  with  blotches  in  threes  and  fives.  To 
Bugnot  I  feel  particularly  grateful  for  special- 
izing in  the  new  shades  of  reds  and  bronzes 
which  are  among  the  most  dazzling  of  all 
pansies.  The  first  cardinal  flower  I  ever  had 
in  my  pansy  bed  was  evidently  admired  very 
much  by  somebody  else,  for  on  the  morning 
after  the  first  blossom  had  opened  the  whole 
plant  had  completely  disappeared! 

CATS'  FACES  AND  OTHER  FACES 

Later  hybridizers  in  several  countries  have 
gone  even  beyond  these  Frenchmen  in  obtaining 
larger  and  more  velvety  flowers,  a  greater  variety 
of  delicate  tints  and  spots  and  of  queer  faces  in 
the  petals.  In  place  of  Thompson's  "cats' 


•«         MODERN  PANSY   CULTURE       161 

faces"  we  now  see  in  some  varieties  of  pansies 
the  quaintest  countenances,  some  smiling,  others 
almost  grotesque.  No  one  can  fail  to  detect  the 
Russian  peasant  faces  among  them.  Thus 
pansies  are  the  most  human  of  all  flowers.  As 
Harriet  Keeler  has  put  it,  "The  bright,  cheerful, 
wistful,  or  roguish  faces  look  up  at  you  with  so 
much  apparent  intelligence  that  it  is  hard  to 
believe  it  is  all  a  pathetic  fallacy  and  there  is 
nothing  there." 

A  born  flower  lover  does  not  need  to  know  the 
genealogical  details  regarding  the  modern  high- 
bred pansy  to  be  enthralled  by  its  beauty.  Yet, 
if  you  are  a  born  flower  lover,  you  will  admit  that 
your  interest  is  increased  by  a  knowledge  of  these 
details.  You  will  certainly,  if  you  know  them, 
peruse  the  pansy  pages  in  your  seed  catalogue 
with  increased  interest  in  making  your  selections. 

Unless  you  have  a  very  large  garden  and 
plenty  of  gardeners,  or  wish  to  specialize  in 
pansies,  you  will  hardly  find  it  worth  while  to 
buy  individual  varieties  separately.  The  best 
mixtures  sold  by  seedsmen  who  have  a  reputa- 
tion to  maintain  usually  include  the  best  vari- 
eties. These  mixtures  of  the  choicest  up-to- 
date  pansies  are  rather  expensive;  but  to  buy 
cheap  pansy  seeds  is  about  as  wise  as  buying  the 
cheapest  medicines  you  can  get  when  you  are  ill. 
The  finest  pansies  are,  in  the  seedsmen's  jargon, 
"shy  seeders. ' '  Among  humans  it  is  the  same  way 
— proletarians  usually  have  the  larger  families. 


162       GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         •» 

HUMAN   TRAITS   OF   PANSIES 

Pansies  are  like  humans  in  still  another  way. 
Some  are  overbig  and  loud  and  commonplace 
and  vulgar — I  positively  hate  them.  Strange 
to  say  (or  is  it  strange?)  these  coarse  yellows 
and  purples  are  the  ones  which,  in  full  bloom, 
take  up  most  of  the  room  in  the  boxes  of  plants 
sold  by  the  thousands  in  early  spring.  For- 
tunately, most  people  are  not  so  fussy  as  I  am. 
Whenever  I  see  one  of  these  vulgar  pansies  in 
my  garden,  out  comes  the  whole  plant.  Its 
room  is  more  desirable  than  its  presence.  Tastes 
differ,  and  doubtless  some  persons  honestly 
admire  the  glaring,  insolent  yellows  I  detest; 
but  I  am  glad  to  say  they  and  the  dull  purples 
are  seldom  to  be  found  in  the  most  expensive 
mixtures,  which  shows  that  the  pansy  epicures 
who  raise  the  choicest  seeds  share  my  taste. 
Some  yellows  are  lovely — especially  those  with  a 
light-greenish  tinge.  These  are  gems,  ranking  in 
value  with  the  snow  white  and  coal  black  and 
sky  or  dark  navy  blue  and  blood  red  and  pink 
and  rose  and  bronzes  and  coppers  and  their  end- 
lessly varied  combinations — blotched,  flaked, 
and  veined  in  contrasting  colors.  I  know  few 
garden  experiences  so  exciting  and  fascinating  as 
watching  the  pansies  in  a  new  mixed  bed  suc- 
cessively unfolding  and  surprising  us  with  novel 
faces  and  color  shades  and  contrasts. 

There  are  two  reasons  for  not  trying  to  raise 
your  own  pansy  seeds.  If  you  let  the  blossoms 


«          MODERN  PANSY   CULTURE       163 

change  into  seed  capsules  you  will  soon  have  no 
more,  for  every  plant  thinks  it  has  done  its 
duty  as  soon  as  it  has  provided  for  the  next 
generation.  That's  one  reason;  the  other  is 
that  in  the  hands  of  nonprofessionals  pansies 
run  down  quickly  in  size,  color,  and  all  that 
makes  them  lovely.  Therefore,  I  repeat,  plant 
nothing  but  the  most  expensive  seeds  from  the 
most  reliable  firms.  Don't  balk  at  the  price. 
It  takes  twenty-five  thousand  seeds  to  make  an 
ounce;  and  the  best,  to  say  it  again,  are  "shy 
seeders."  Let  the  artists — for  artists  they  are — 
who  originate  and  raise  the  choicest  varieties 
have  a  reasonable  profit. 

The  best  time  to  start  pansy  seeds  is  in  August. 
Plants  born  in  midsummer  and  well  cared  for 
with  plenty  of  water  until  the  fierce  heat  abates, 
grow  big  enough  to  bloom  a  month  or  so  before 
the  snow  comes  to  cover  them.  In  spring  these 
same  strong  young  plants  burst  into  full  bloom 
as  soon  as  the  snow  melts  away,  vying  in  earli- 
ness  with  crocuses  and  Iceland  poppies. 

The  almost  universal  American  habit  of 
letting  pansy  plants  die  in  July  or  August  is 
deplorable.  To  be  sure,  the  scorching  sun  mer- 
cilessly diminishes  their  size  if  allowed  to  have 
his  way.  But  he  can  be  thwarted.  You  can 
keep  your  pansies  big  and  fragrant  and  happy 
all  summer  if  you  will.  Three  things  are  neces- 
sary: frequent  stirring  of  the  soil,  thorough 
weeding,  and  daily  watering.  A  little  liquid 


164      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         JS 

sheep  or  hen  manure  (very  weak)  added  to  the 
water  two  or  three  times  a  month  will  do  the 
rest — provided  you  pick  the  blossoms  every  day 
or  two.  Hens  keep  on  laying  only  when  you 
take  away  the  eggs. 

Pansy  plants  started  in  August  one  summer 
can  be  kept  full  size  till  November  or  even 
December  of  the  next  year  if  during  the  second 
August  all  the  old  straggling  shoots  are  cut  out 
close  to  the  ground  and  the  soil  is  enriched  by 
stirring  it  around  them  and  working  in  a  little 
bone  meal  and  wood  ashes  or  a  minute  quantity 
of  pulverized  sheep  or  old  hen  manure.  These 
are  also  the  best  foods  to  use  when  first  preparing 
the  bed  for  the  pansy  seeds  or  plants.  If,  in 
addition,  you  have,  five  or  six  inches  below  the 
soil  thus  enriched,  a  layer  of  inverted  sods 
(clover  preferred),  you  will  have  flowers  deserv- 
ing a  gold  medal  at  the  state  fair.  The  rotting 
sods  will  tempt  the  roots  to  grow  down  where 
it  is  cold  and  moist. 

It  is  not  best  to  grow  pansies  in  the  shade  of 
a  tree  or  a  building.  Noonday  shade  may  be 
an  advantage  when  the  plants  are  not  freely 
watered;  but  when  they  are,  the  best  location 
is  in  the  open,  where  the  wind  can  sweep  over 
the  bed,  wafting  the  pansy  fragrance  toward 
your  piazza. 

A  last  word.  Why  do  the  seedsmen  in  their 
catalogues  never  mention  that  pansies  are 
fragrant,  as  they  do  in  the  case  of  other  flowers? 


CHAPTER    XVIII.      GARDENERS 
WHO   PAINT  THE   LILY 

MY  friend  J.  C.  Rodriguez,  formerly 
editor  and   owner  of  the   leading 
newspaper  in  Brazil,  has   repeat- 
edly invited  us  to  spend  a  summer 
with    him    in    his    country.      We 
would  go  were  it  not  for  the  fact 
that,  though  a  millionaire,  he  does  not  own  an 
airplane.     I  should  want  an  airplane  at  my 
disposal  so  as  to  be  able  to  see  the  gorgeous 
flowers  of  the  Brazilian  forest.     Don't  think  I 
am  losing  my  alleged  mind.    I  have  never  been 
in  Brazil,  but  after  reading  Herbert  H.  Smith's 
descriptions  in  his  book  on  that  country  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  only  way  to  see 
the  floral  wonders  of  a  tropical  forest  is  from 
above. 

The  Brazilian  forest  has  a  roof  garden.  "In 
the  thick  forest  one  hardly  ever  finds  a  bright 
flower;  certain  trees  are  splendid  in  their  season 
with  yellow  or  purple  or  white,  but  you  see 
nothing  of  this  from  below.  Strong  colors  always 
seek  the  sunshine,"  and  the  sunshine  does  not 
penetrate  through  the  densely  matted  roof  of 
the  dark  and  gloomy  forest.  Up  on  that  roof 
you  find  not  only  the  tree  blossoms,  but  the 
orchids  and  other  air  plants,  and  a  great  variety 
of  vegetation  which  adopts  the  habit  of  climbing 
a  hundred  or  two  hundred  feet  on  tree  trunks 


166      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

as  the  only  way  of  exposing  its  flowers  to  the 
sunshine. 

I  foresee  the  time  when  airships  will  daily 
take  tourists  from  Rio  for  a  sail  across  the 
tropical  roof  gardens. 

WILD-FLOWER  GARDENS 

Our  own  wild  flowers  may  not  be  so  exotic  and 
brilliant  in  color  as  the  Brazilian  orchids  and  tree 
blossoms,  but  it  is  some  advantage  to  have  them 
grow  on  the  ground  instead  of  on  treetops,  acces- 
sible only  to  parrots  and  monkeys  and  airmen. 
What  would  Mrs.  Theodore  Thomas  have  done 
in  Brazil?  She  had  the  happy  thought  of  making 
up  her  garden  entirely  of  transplanted  wild 
flowers  and  some  other  plants  that  are  hardy 
enough  to  fight  their  own  battles,  as  the  wild 
ones  do,  in  the  severe  climate  of  the  White 
Mountains.  Beginning  with  a  wheelbarrow- 
load  of  black-eyed  Susans  to  cover  a  discordant 
wall,  she  continued  to  add  flowers,  shrubs, 
vines,  and  weeds  till  she  had  so  many  that  a 
list  of  them  takes  up  ten  pages  of  her  chatty 
little  book,  Our  Mountain  Garden. 

She  was  particularly  partial  to  weeds  because 
"if  one  gives  a  good  weed  the  least  chance  it  is 
so  grateful,  and  so  easily  turned  into  a  hand- 
some flower."  The  pale  little  lilac  wild  aster, 
for  instance,  "is  luxuriant  in  a  cultivated 
border.  Each  plant  sends  up  a  dozen  or  more 
stalks  three  feet  high,  which  are  covered  with 


•K  WHO  PAINTS  THE  LILY          167 

such  a  riotous  mass  of  fairy  flowers  that  they 
look  as  if  enveloped  in  a  cloud  of  lavender 
foam." 

Here  we  have  an  instance  showing  how  the 
gardening  mania  is  transforming  and  beauti- 
fying this  world  and  making  life  more  worth 
living.  Apples,  pears,  peaches,  cherries,  and 
all  the  other  fruits  that  we  enjoy  were  originally 
weeds — sour,  astringent,  small,  almost  or  quite 
inedible,  or  even  poisonous;  the  college  educa- 
tion the  gardeners  gave  them  made  them  what 
they  are  now,  and  the  same  is  true  of  flowers. 
The  little  lilac  asters  which  Mrs.  Thomas  gave 
a  chance  to  show  what  they  could  do  are  pretty 
enough  as  they  stand  in  the  farmers'  pastures, 
but  she  undertook  to  paint  the  lily  and  gild 
refined  gold,  and  succeeded,  Shakespeare  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding. 

This  painting  of  lilies  has  indeed  become  the 
fashion  among  gardeners,  and  a  fascinating 
fashion  it  is;  a  fashion  which  has  transformed 
their  occupation  into  a  fine  art  ranking  with 
music  and  painting,  architecture,  sculpture, 
and  poetry,  because  not  only  is  its  material 
of  the  very  essence  of  beauty,  but  it  gives 
endless  opportunities  for  the  exercise  of  creative 
imagination. 

THE  SHASTA  DAISY  WAS  A  WEED 

Luther  Burbank's  success  is  very  largely  due 
to  the  fact  that  he  is  an  artist,  a  floral  epicure 


168      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *» 

of  exquisitely  refined  sensibility.  One  time  he 
had  a  row  of  daisies  all  of  which  seemed  equally 
white  to  his  assistants  and  to  a  number  of  other 
persons,  though  his  eyes  told  him  that  one  of 
them  was  nearer  a  pure  white  than  all  the 
rest.  But  one  day  an  artist  from  San  Francisco 
visited  his  garden,  and  when  she  was  shown 
the  daisies  she  e-xclaimed  at  once  that  there  was 
one  much  whiter  than  the  rest,  and  pointed  to 
the  one  he  felt  was  nearer  to  purity  in  white- 
ness than  any  others  of  all  the  thousands  of 
daisies  in  his  garden. 

That  flower  became  one  of  the  ancestors  of 
the  famous  Shasta  daisy,  now  sold  by  all  seeds- 
men everywhere.  Its  other  ancestors  were  an 
English  large-flowered  daisy  and  a  pure-white 
Japanese  variety.  And  thus  by  careful  inter- 
marriage Burbank  transformed  a  common  road- 
side weed  of  New  England  into  a  thing  of  beauty 
and  a  joy  forever. 

He  has  done  the  same  thing  with  other  plants, 
and,  he  says,  "there  is  still  an  indefinite  amount 
of  material  among  our  wild  plants  from  which 
garden  plants  might  be  developed.''  "To  name 
all  that  are  worthy  of  consideration  would,"  he 
adds  on  another  page  of  Vol.  X,  "take  many 
volumes,  for  there  are  more  than  ten  thousand 
species  of  flowers  indigenous  to  the  United 
States,  and  of  these  only  something  like  fifteen 
hundred  have  at  one  time  or  another  been 
placed  under  cultivation."  He  advises  amateur 


^  WHO  PAINTS   THE   LILY          169 

gardeners  to  cultivate  some  of  the  neglected 
weeds  and  enjoy  some  pleasant  surprises.  "A 
weed  is  but  an  unloved  flower,"  is  one  of  his 
maxims. 

It  is  not  only  weeds  that  can  be  changed  into 
something  rich  and  strange.  It  is  a  striking 
characteristic  of  the  Burbank  age  of  horticultural 
evolution  that  many  flowers  which  seemed  good 
enough  to  our  ancestors  have  been  so  beautified 
and  "painted"  and  transformed  that  our  grand- 
mothers would  hardly  know  them.  The  '  'old- 
fashioned  garden"  flowers  are  nice  to  talk 
about,  but  they  wouldn't  please  us  if  we  now 
saw  them  side  by  side  with  their  educated 
descendants. 

This  is  true  particularly  of  pansies,  poppies, 
sweet  peas,  peonies,  dahlias,  gladioli,  nastur- 
tiums. But  there  are  many  others  in  which  the 
recent  changes  and  improvements  are  quite  as 
astonishing  and  thrilling. 

The  snapdragons  and  larkspurs  and  zinnias  of 
to-day,  for  example,  are  infinitely  more  varied 
and  artistic  than  those  of  the  last  century,  and 
the  same  may  be  said  of  verbenas,  salpiglossis, 
cannas,  tulips,  and  other  bulbs,  irises,  cosmos, 
asters,  columbines,  petunias,  and  many  others. 

Hundreds  of  professional  gardeners,  as  well  as 
amateurs,  have  been  busy  in  recent  decades 
"painting  the  lilies"  and  other  beautiful  flowers. 
Hundreds  of  others,  Mr.  Burbank  urges,  should 
indulge  in  this  fascinating  occupation,  which 


170      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

enables  anyone  to  put  the  stamp  of  his  own 
personality  and  taste  on  the  plants  with  which 
he  experiments,  and  to  have  a  flower  garden 
differing  from  all  others  in  the  world. 

PETUNIAS  AND   DAHLIAS 

How  proud  and  happy  Mrs.  Thomas  Gould  of 
Ventura,  California,  must  have  felt  when  she 
was  able,  after  some  years  of  artistic  selection 
and  hybridizing,  to  give  to  the  world  her 
"painted  lily,"  alias  the  improved  petunia, 
known  and  prized  everywhere  as  the  Giant  of 
California.  The  old-fashioned  petunia  a  cen- 
tury ago  had  one  conspicuous  merit — the  rich 
perfume  it  exhaled  at  nightfall.  In  all  other 
respects  it  was  gradually  made  more  attractive, 
and  Sir  W.  J.  Hooker  referred  to  it  as  one  of 
many  plants  in  which  "the  art  and  skill  of  the 
agriculturist  had  improved  nature."  In  size, 
form,  and  color  it  continued  to  be  beautified, 
till  the  climax  was  reached  in  Mrs.  Gould's 
strain,  no  two  plants  of  which  give  identical 
blossoms;  to  watch  the  buds  open  is  one 
pleasant  surprise  after  another. 

A  few  years  ago  I  was  simply  stunned  by  an 
exhibit  of  dahlias  in  a  florist's  window  on  Tre- 
mont  Street,  Boston.  From  the  simple,  crude, 
original  form  to  the  latest  developments  of  the 
cactus  dahlia,  here  they  were,  a  demonstration 
of  horticultural  genius.  The  new  race  of 
dahlias,  as  developed  and  improved  by  Burbank 


•»  WHO  PAINTS  THE  LILY          171 

and  many  others,  is,  in  his  words,  "so  utterly 
divergent  from  the  parent  form  as  to  be  almost 
unrecognizable";  yet,  as  he  adds,  this  flower 
offers  "an  infinity  of  variation  which  has  only 
been  tapped."  He  likes  the  single  ones  best. 
At  the  dahlia  show  in  New  York  in  the  summer 
of  1921  more  than  five  hundred  varieties  were 
exhibited. 

There  were  Burbanks  long  before  the  Cali- 
fornian.  They  achieved  such  marvels  with 
some  flowers  that  no  finishing  touches  were  left 
to  be  added  by  his  master  hand.  The  peony  is 
an  instance.  It  was  known  to  the  ancient 
nations,  but  they  seem  to  have  cultivated  it 
chiefly  for  medical  and  superstitional  reasons. 
In  the  'sixties  of  the  last  century  the  peony  was 
made  popular  in  England  by  James  Kelway,  who 
introduced  one  hundred  and  four  new  single 
and  double  varieties.  Now  there  are  over  a 
thousand,  vying  with  one  another  in  color  and 
fragrance. 

We  must  not  forget  that  China  and  Japan 
had  their  Burbanks  hundreds  of  years  ago. 
Think  of  their  unspeakably  glorious  irises  and 
morning-glories  and  their  astonishing  chrysan- 
themums! The  Japanese  were  probably  the 
first  to  show  the  world  that  gardening  is  a  fine 
art  and  that  it  is  worth  while  to  paint  the  lily 
and  perfume  the  rose. 


CHAPTER  XIX.  THE  FRAGRANT 
SOUL  OF  FLOWERS 

I  HAVE  a  vague  recollection  that  Ruskin,  in 
one   of  his   passionate   random    paragraphs 
(the  great  art  critic  was  almost   as   discur- 
sive and  by-the-wayward  as  Mark  Twain), 
spoke  most  disrespectfully  of  flowers  which 
have  no  fragrance;   that,  in  fact,  he  wiped 
up  the  floor  with  them.    I  cannot  now  find  this 
paragraph,  nor  has  a  trained  employee  of  the 
Boston  Public  Library  been  able  to  find  it  for 
me,  so  I  may  be  mistaken. 

If  Ruskin  did  not  disparage  scentless  blos- 
soms, I  have  felt  tempted  to  do  it  myself,  many 
a  time.  The  common  blue  violet,  which  in 
May  adorns  our  wayside  by  the  millions,  is 
pretty,  but  how  much  more  enjoyable  it  would 
be  if  it  had  the  delicious  fragrance  of  its  more 
favored  sisters,  the  Viola  odor  at  a  and  the  tiny 
white  Viola  blanda,  or  of  the  canadensis,  or  of  its 
cousin,  the  pansy.  Or  take  the  rose.  Don't 
you  feel  disappointed  and  almost  resentful 
every  time  you  pluck  one  and  find  that  it  has 
none  of  the  many  rose  odors?  With  poppies  or 
gladioli  it  is  somewhat  different,  because  you 
don't  look  for  fragrance;  but  they,  too,  would 
be  doubly  attractive  if  they  had  it.  Fragrance 
is  the  soul  of  flowers  as  expression  is  the  soul  of 
music  and  flavor  the  soul  of  food.  A  blossom 
without  it  is  like  a  beautiful  girl  without  a  soul. 
There  are  two  ways  to  avoid  disappointment 


"8        FLOWERS  AND  THEIR  SOUL     173 

in  the  flower  garden.  We  can  either  grow  only 
those  blossoms  which  are  scented  or  we  can 
impart  fragrance  to  those  which  have  it  not — 
one  of  the  most  alluring  tasks  of  plant  breeders 
and  educators  of  the  future,  following  the  trail 
blazed  by  Burbank. 

Fortunately  we  need  not  wait  for  these  floral 
perfumers  of  the  future,  for  we  have  a  large 
number  of  sweet-scented  blossoms  of  all  kinds. 
(I  have  already  written  briefly  on  this  topic  in 
the  chapter  on  "Favorite  Garden  Flowers,"  but 
it  is  so  important  that  I  must  dwell  on  it  at 
greater  length.)  To  name  only  a  few  of  each 
kind,  we  can  have  a  garden  and  surroundings 
adorned  with  fragrant  trees  like  the  linden  and 
locust;  fragrant  bushes  like  the  lilac,  mock 
orange,  Bechtel's  flowering  crab,  roses,  Tar- 
tarian honeysuckle,  and  the  heavenly  straw- 
berry bush  (calycanthus) ;  vines  like  the  Bel- 
gian and  Japanese  honeysuckle,  roses,  grapes, 
wistaria;  bulbs  like  the  hyacinth,  tulip,  jonquil, 
poet's  narcissus,  tuberose;  perennial  plants  like 
the  peony,  yellow  day  lily,  carnation,  Iceland 
poppy*  phlox,  lily-of-the-valley;  and  a  number 
of  annuals,  besides  divers  fragrant  herbs. 

For  my  little  nephew  I  provide  every  year  a 
special  garden  of  fragrant  annual  flowers  and 
plants,  which  I  cannot  commend  too  highly  as  a 
source  of  pleasure.  The  list  includes  stock, 
phlox,  sweet  alyssum,  heliotrope,  nasturtium, 
Burbank  verbena,  lavender,  catnip,  peppermint, 
12 


174  GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS  °g 
four-o'clock,  lemon  verbena,  rose  geranium, 
African  marigold,  nicotiana,  schizanthus,  mi- 
gnonette, and  two  exquisite  aromatic  novelties 
just  introduced  by  Luther  Burbank — the  Aus- 
tralian coconut  geranium  (which  will  become 
a  rival  of  the  delectable  rose  geranium)  and  the 
"Brazilian  perfume,"  the  leaves  of  which,  when 
rubbed,  give  one  a  new  sensation  of  delight,  as 
distinct,  intense,  and  refreshing  as  oil  of  lavender. 

FRAGRANCE   INTOXICATES,   LIKE  MUSIC 

Pansies  and  sweet  peas  would,  of  course,  be 
included  in  this  garden  of  fragrant  annuals, 
but  they  are  bedded  elsewhere.  The  pansy's 
fragrance  is  even  more  thrilling  than  that  of 
any  violet;  I  have  spoken  of  it  in  another 
chapter.  As  for  the  sweet  pea,  I  think  it  is  my 
favorite  perfume;  there  is  something  ethereal, 
refined,  delicate,  yet  intense,  about  it  that 
ravishes  my  olfactory  nerves  and  makes  me 
dream  of  celestial  bliss.  Much  as  I  love  sweet 
peas  for  their  delicate  contours  and  varied  colors, 
their  fragrance  is  still  dearer  to  me;  I  can  get 
forms  and  colors  in  other  flowers,  but  the  fra- 
grance is  unique ;  to  lose  it  would  be  a  calamity ; 
and  there  is  danger  ahead. 

The  late  W.  Atlee  Burpee  once  wrote  me  that 
he  had  advised  Mr.  Burbank  not  to  waste  any  of 
his  precious  time  trying  to  improve  sweet  peas, 
because  they  were  well-nigh  perfect.  But  the 
early-flowering  habit  was  still  to  be  inbred, 


7?        FLOWERS  AND  THEIR  SOUL     175 

and  in  his  Vol.  IX,  p.  27,  Burbank  calls  atten- 
tion to  another  important  point.  One  of  the 
Eastern  seedsmen  who  raise  their  sweet-pea 
seeds  in  California  showed  him  with  great  pride 
some  lovely  new  varieties,  and  was  not  a  little 
surprised  when  Burbank  called  his  attention  to 
the  fact  that  they  had  no  fragrance  whatsoever. 
In  his  eagerness  for  form  and  color  the  grower 
had  neglected  the  perfume.  "Like  perhaps 
most  others,  he  had  taken  it  for  granted  that  all 
varieties  of  fragrant  flowers  are  fragrant.  Series 
of  experiments  in  cross-breeding  would  be  neces- 
sary to  reintroduce  the  perfume  to  these  vari- 
eties that  have  lost  this  finishing  quality." 

Before  Burbank's  own  achievements  became 
known  that  last  sentence  would  have  seemed 
absurd.  How  can  anyone  put  a  scent  into  a 
flower  which  has  none?  He  did  it  years  ago, 
and  if  you  want  to  know  how,  see  the  references 
under  the  word  "Fragrance"  in  the  index  to  the 
twelfth  volume  of  his  works.  Anyone  is  at 
liberty  to  follow  his  methods,  and  there  is 
plenty  of  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  inge- 
nuity and  patience,  for  there  are  hosts  of  beauti- 
ful flowers  that  clamor  for  fragrance  because 
they  feel  their  inferiority. 

A  French  botanist  says  that  in  Europe  alone 
about  forty-two  hundred  species  of  plants  are 
utilized  for  various  purposes,  and  that  only 
about  one-tenth  of  them  have  an  agreeable  per- 
fume, the  others  being  either  inodorous  or  malo- 


176      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

dorous.  Unpleasant  odors  can  be  changed  into 
agreeable  ones,  as  Burbank  showed  in  the  case 
of  the  dahlia,  and  perhaps,  if  we  all  got  busy, 
there  would  be  no  unfragrant  flowers  in  the 
gardens  by  the  end  of  this  century. 

EDUCATING  THE   SENSE  OF  SMELL 

My  little  nephew  enjoys  the  blossoms  and 
leaves  in  his  own  fragrant  garden  very  much. 
Before  he  was  a  year  old  I  used  to  surprise  him 
with  faint  whiffs  from  the  tiny  vial  of  oil  of 
bergamot  I  always  carry  in  my  vest  pocket. 
(It  often  proves  a  stimulant  and  life-saver  in 
concert  halls  and  theaters.)  He  always  greeted 
these  whiffs  with  a  pleased  smile,  and  to-day  he 
takes  almost  as  much  pleasure  in  refined  per- 
fumes as  his  uncle  does,  while  his  nose  helps  him 
to  recognize  things.  Ten  minutes  ago  he  brought 
me  a  stick  and  asked  me  to  cut  a  notch  in  it. 
Then  he  smelled  the  chips  and  said,  "That's  pine." 

Once,  when  our  neighbor's  piggie  had  run 
away  into  the  woods,  I  said  to  him:  "If  that 
piggie  cries  "Wolf!"  twice  when  there  is  none,  we 
won't  run  to  help  him  when  the  wolf  really  comes 
and  he  calls  for  help  a  third  time.  So  you  see,  pigs 
and  boys  must  never  tell  lies."  To  which  the  five- 
year-old  promptly  replied,  "Specially  pigs!" 

It  pays  to  make  a  fragrant  garden  for  a  boy 
as  bright  as  that.  I  very  much  doubt  if  he 
would  have  been  so  bright  had  I  not  taken 
pains  to  train  all  his  senses.  If  children  had  all 


??        FLOWERS  AND  THEIR  SOUL     177 

their  senses  trained  they  would,  as  adults,  find 
this  a  very  much  more  interesting  world  than 
most  persons  do  now.  Though  we  look  on  sight 
as  the  most  important  sense,  few  of  us  learn 
even  to  see,  except  vaguely.  If  you  don't 
believe  this,  read,  for  example,  Ruskin's  chap- 
ters on  clouds,  in  his  Modern  Painters.  You 
will  marvel  at  the  many  beauties  of  nature  he 
saw  which  had  escaped  your  notice.  You  look 
vaguely  at  the  mouths  of  men  and  women  you 
talk  to,  but  you  do  not  see  the  subtle  move- 
ments which  enable  a  deaf  person  to  read  on 
your  lips  every  word  addressed  to  him. 

I  never  fully  realized  how  shamefully  I  had 
neglected  my  sense  of  touch  till  I  saw  a  copy  of 
my  Chopin  as  reprinted  for  the  blind.  The 
groups  of  dots  which  tell  the  whole  story  to 
those  who  cannot  see  were  not  distinguished  by 
my  dull  finger  tips.  But,  thank  Heaven,  I  did 
learn  from  my  infancy  to  use  my  senses  of  sight, 
hearing,  and  smell.  Had  I  not  done  so,  I  should 
not  have  seen  all  the  entrancing  things  in 
women  and  scenery  that  impelled  me  to  write 
five  books  about  them;  I  should  not  have 
recorded  my  enthusiasm  for  good  music  in  half 
a  dozen  volumes,  nor  spent  several  years  of  my 
life  collecting  facts  to  prove,  in  Food  and 
Flavor,  that  nine-tenths  of  our  enjoyment  of 
food  is  due  to  the  sense  of  smell,  exercised  in  a 
way  of  which  most  people  haven't  the  faintest 
consciousness. 


178      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         •« 

The  use  of  this  knowledge  has  made  me  a 
superepicure  in  matters  gastronomic,  and  also 
in  the  enjoyment  of  natural  perfumery,  which  I 
wouldn't  exchange  for  all  the  wealth  of  a  Rocke- 
feller. The  fragrance  of  flowers  exhilarates  and 
intoxicates  me  like  the  music  of  Schubert, 
Chopin,  Wagner,  or  Grieg.  When  I  can  have 
that  I  do  not  miss  the  bouquet  of  vintage  wines, 
of  which  the  excesses  of  whisky  drinkers  have 
unjustly  deprived  me. 

NATURAL  PERFUMES  BEST 

Prohibition  would  never  have  been  necessary 
had  those  who  engineered  it  taken  pains, 
instead,  to  train  the  senses  of  children  to  prefer 
a  delicate  bouquet  to  a  gross  stimulant. 

The  art  of  perfumery  has  a  great  future.  The 
artificial  coal-tar  perfumes  from  Germany  have 
temporarily  damaged  a  good  cause,  but  the 
infinitely  more  refined  and  individual  odors  of 
flowers  will  drive  them  out  again  in  due  time. 
Natural  perfumery,  condensed  from  flowers,  is 
necessarily  expensive,  but  in  our  gardens  we 
can  all  enjoy  it  for  a  trifling  cost. 

Most  people  feel  that  they  must  be  allowed 
some  sensual  delights.  As  ex-President  Eliot  of 
Harvard  once  said,  "Men  are  animals  and  have 
a  right  to  enjoy  without  reproach  those  pleasures 
of  animal  existence  which  maintain  health, 
strength,  and  life  itself."  Of  all  these  pleasures 
the  enjoyment  of  the  fragrant  soul  of  flowers  is 


«        FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   SOUL      179 

surely  the  most  innocent.  It  should  be  encour- 
aged in  every  possible  way;  beds  of  fragrant 
flowers  should  be  in  every  garden  for  the  delec- 
tation of  both  children  and  adults. 

They  can  be  made  a  source  of  profit,  too.  A 
young  Southern  woman  I  have  heard  of  derived 
from  her  home-made  perfumes  a  larger  income 
than  she  ever  made  as  a  teacher.  Early  in  the 
morning  she  picked  the  blossoms  of  roses,  tube- 
roses, wild  violets,  or  crabs,  placed  them  between 
layers  of  cotton  wool  soaked  with  olive  oil, 
changing  the  blossoms  daily  for  a  week,  and 
then  squeezing  the  oil,  mixed  with  a  little  oil  of 
cloves  to  make  the  fragrance  permanent,  into 
the  mouth  of  a  filter  over  a  bottle.1 

The  demand  for  these  perfumes  greatly  ex- 
ceeded the  supply,  for  there  are  thousands  of 
persons  who  know — what  the  ancients  of  Bible 
days  already  knew — that  fragrance  is  exhila- 
rating, antiseptic,  hygienic.  A  little  vial  of  per- 
fumery from  the  garden,  or  a  visit  to  the  garden 
itself,  is  worth  more  for  refreshing  the  jaded 
mind  than  highballs,  tea,  or  coffee. 

A  SYMPHONY  OF  LILY   PERFUMES 

Luther  Burbank  is,  I  feel  sure,  indebted  to 
his  passion  for  fragrant  flowers  for  much  of  the 


1  Interesting  details  on  this  subject  may  be  found  in  Bulletin  195 
of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Plant  Industry,  entitled  "The  Production 
of  Volatile  Oils  and  Perfumery  Plants  in  the  United  States."  See 
also  "Perfume  Making"  in  Black's  Gardening  Dictionary. 


180      GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         « 

youthful  health  and  vigor  he  has  preserved  into 
his  seventies,  for  reasons  I  have  previously 
referred  to.  In  a  delightful  little  book  for 
children,  Stories  of  Luther  Burbank  and  His 
Plant  School,  by  Effie  Young  Slusser,  Mary 
Belle  Williams,  and  Emma  Burbank  Beeson 
(Scribners),  there  is  a  page  which  vividly 
describes  his  enjoyment  of  his  new  creations  in 
color  and  fragrance.  He  spent  a  quarter  of  a 
century  in  experimenting  with  lilies  of  all  kinds, 
from  all  parts  of  the  world.  Two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  of  them  there  were,  covering 
two  acres  near  Sebastopol,  out  of  which  he 
selected  fifty  that  came  up  to  his  ideal. 

"In  June,  when  the  blossoming  season  came, 
rare  mingling  of  perfumes  filled  the  air — thou- 
sands of  odors  blended  into  one.  Nothing  like 
it  had  ever  been  known  before  in  the  whole 
world.  The  people  of  the  Gold  Ridge  section 
wondered  and  wondered  what  it  could  be,  and 
they  came  from  all  around  to  investigate  the 
causes.  As  they  came  nearer  and  nearer,  such 
a  mass  of  beautiful  colors  spread  out  before 
them  as  they  had  never  before  even  dreamed  of 
When  they  came  close  the  lilies  nodded  and 
nodded  and  swung  their  censers,  bidding  them 
behold  their  exquisite  colorings  and  quaint 
forms,  for  nothing  in  the  world  could  compare 
with  them."  Some  of  them  were  "proud  of 
their  fragrant  white  dress";  others  relied  more 
on  their  shape  and  colors.  "A  few  bore  as  many 


*«        FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   SOUL      181 

as  fifty  flowers  on  one  stalk;  and  there  was 
one  that  carried  ninety-one  flowers  on  a  four- 
foot  stalk." 

And  the  man  who  most  of  all  enjoyed  these 
new  sights  and  perfumes  was  the  master  who 
had  created  them. 

"Can  my  thoughts  be  imagined,"  said  Bur- 
bank,  "after  twenty-six  years  of  care  and  labor, 
as  I  walked  among  them  on  a  dewy  morning, 
and  looked  upon  these  new  forms  of  beauty 
upon  which  other  eyes  had  never  gazed?  .  .  . 
A  new  world  of  beauty  seemed  to  have  been 
found,  and  I  was  fully  rewarded  for  all  the  care 
I  had  bestowed  upon  them." 

Let  me  add  a  word  of  warning.  Don't  think 
your  flowers  are  not  fragrant  because  they  have 
no  scent  in  the  daytime.  Some  of  them  have 
it  all  the  time,  but  many  plants  swing  their 
censers  only  in  the  evening  and  early  morning. 
The  fragrant  tobacco  plant  (Nicotiana  affinis), 
for  instance,  bears  hundreds  of  large  snowy 
blossoms  at  once.  In  the  daytime  it  seems  made 
for  eyes  only;  but  visit  it  by  full  moon  and  you 
will  be  reminded  of  the  stories  of  the  spice 
islands  which  intoxicated  the  senses  of  mariners 
before  they  could  see  them. 


CHAPTER  XX.    ARE   PIGS   GEN- 
UINE EPICURES? 

A  TENNYSON  votary  called  his  pig 
Maud  because  it  "came   into   the 
garden"   so.    He  was  evidently  a 
cousin  of  the  man  who  called  his 
favorite     hen    Macduff,     and,    on 
being    asked   why,    quoted   Shake- 
speare as  his  reason.     "Lay  on,  Macduff,  and 
damn'd  be  him  that  first  cries,  'Hold,  enough!"' 
A  friend  of  mine  in  Vermont  was  surprised 
one  morning  to  find  one  of  his  neighbor's  pigs 
in  his  garden,  though  the  gate  was  closed  and 
no  hole  could  be  found  in  the  fence.    On  being 
chased,  the  porker  revealed  his  entering  place — 
a  hollow  log  that  formed  part  of  the  foundation 
of  the  fence. 

Being  a  humorist,  my  friend  at  once  saw  his 
chance  to  have  some  fun  with  piggie.  He 
managed  to  fix  the  fence  in  such  a  way  that  both 
ends  of  the  log  were  outside  the  garden.  The 
surprise  and  growing  bewilderment  of  the  intru- 
der when  he  found  himself  again  and  again  out- 
side were  most  comical.  A  movie  reel  showing 
it  would  have  made  the  man's  fortune. 

There  are  good  reasons  why  pigs  come  into 
the  garden  so;  they  are  crazy  for  greens — as 
crazy  as  woodchucks  or  cows;  and  gardens,  of 
course,  furnish  the  juiciest  of  greens.  It  has 
long  been  known  that  hogs  prosper  particularly 
well  in  pastures,  but  it  is  only  lately  that  the 


•8  ARE   PIGS   EPICURES?  183 

farmers  who  raise  swine  have  come  to  realize 
fully  that,  besides  bran,  milk  or  buttermilk,  and 
corn,  greens  are  of  prime  importance  as  fodder 
because  they  abound  in  the  growth-producing 
food  salts. 

CLOVER-BLOSSOM  PORK 

Three  times  a  day  I  go  down  to  the  garden 
and  bring  up  an  armful  of  greens — succulent 
weeds,  corn  suckers,  or  anything  else  not  needed 
by  the  family — and  throw  them  before  our  two 
colored  piggies,  Sambo  and  Jumbo.  You  have 
heard  that  "pigs  is  pigs"  and  maybe  you  think 
that,  so  far  as  porkers  are  concerned,  "greens  is 
greens."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  pigs  differ  in 
matters  of  taste  individually.  One  year  we  had 
a  pampered  white  pig  which  ostentatiously  pre- 
ferred white  clover  blossoms  to  everything  else. 
We  used  to  pick  huge  bunches  of  these  blossoms 
for  him,  our  visitors  helping.  He  gave  me  visions 
of  a  new  brand  of  hams  and  bacon  surpassing 
the  best  now  in  the  market.  "Clover-blossom 
Pork  Products  Company" — how  would  that  do 
for  a  firm  name? 

Of  course,  the  meat  would  be  really  smoked 
— not  painted  with  creosote.  We  have,  by  the 
way,  a  new  fifty-dollar  metal  smokehouse  with 
coiled  pipes  to  cool  the  smoke  before  it  reaches 
the  meat.  You  ought  to  have  seen  how  stuck 
up  our  pigs  were  last  October  when  I  told  them 
that  the  metal  box  was  a  sanitarium  and  that 
they  were  the  first  ones  to  be  cured  in  it. 


184      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

Jumbo  and  Sambo  are  less  fastidious  and  less 
partial  to  white  clover  than  their  predecessor 
was,  but  they  have  their  preferences  all  the 
same,  and  when  I  throw  an  armful  of  weeds 
into  their  pen  I  know  exactly  which  ones  they 
will  eat  first.  I  am  a  little  worried  about  their 
indifference  to  suckers,  for  when  the  corn 
ripens  stalks  will  be  the  bulk  of  their  food — a 
most  economic  fodder.  I'll  have  to  starve  them 
a  day  to  make  them  realize  how  delectable 
young  corn  stalks  are  for  pigs.  (In  parenthesis, 
have  you  ever  seen  a  cow  take  hold  of  a  six-foot 
cornstalk  and  swallow  it  in  about  six  seconds? 
Another  reel  that  would  earn  a  fortune.  With 
cattle  it  is  never  an  acquired  taste,  and  I 
didn't  know  till  recently  that  it  ever  is  with 
Pigs.) 

In  their  drink  Sambo  and  Jumbo  are  quite 
as  fastidious  as  in  their  fodder.  They  like  to 
have  the  children  pour  bottles  of  cold  water  on 
their  backs  on  hot  afternoons,  but  for  water 
internally — though  they  were  born  in  an  old- 
time  prohibition  state — they  have  little  use — 
unless  it  is  well  flavored.  If  the  trough  is  filled 
with  plain  water  they  poke  their  snouts  in  it, 
make  bubbles,  and,  with  a  disgusted  look,  pass 
on  to  the  corn  I  have  scattered  about  in  the 
grass  for  them.  If  the  water  is  flavored  with 
scalded  cereals  they  drink  some  of  it  slowly; 
if  with  plenty  of  milk  or  boiled  meat  from  the 
soup  kettle,  they  drink  it  eagerly.  If  I  gave 


«  ARE  PIGS  EPICURES?  185 

them  a  pail  of  cream  I  am  quite  sure  it  would 
vanish  in  considerably  less  than  no  time. 

A   MALIGNED   PHILOSOPHER 

Are  pigs  epicures?  In  Oregon,  as  a  boy,  I 
used  to  gather  the  windfalls  in  the  orchard  in  a 
basket  and  throw  them  over  the  fence.  Did 
the  pigs  fall  upon  the  apples  and  devour  them, 
one  after  the  other?  Not  a  bit  of  it!  They 
nosed  them  over,  bit  them  in  two,  till  they  found 
the  ripest  and  sweetest,  which  they  ate;  where- 
upon they  gave  their  attention  to  the  inferior 
ones. 

That  is  not  the  way  of  the  genuine  epicure. 
He  keeps  the  best  for  the  end;  sweets  and 
dainties  he  reserves  for  the  dessert.  Nor  does 
he  ever  overeat,  as  pigs  do  every  time  they  get 
a  chance.  As  I  have  said  elsewhere,  "A  true 
epicure  would  no  more  dull  the  edge  of  his  appe- 
tite for  future  pleasures  of  the  table  by  over- 
indulgence in  food  or  drink  than  a  barber  would 
think  of  whittling  kindling  wood  with  his 
razor."  As  Horace  Fletcher  remarked:  "An 
epicurean  cannot  be  a  glutton.  There  may  be 
gluttons  who  are  less  gluttonous  than  other 
gluttons,  but  epicurism  is  like  politeness  and 
cleanliness  and  is  the  certain  mark  of  gentility." 

Never  was  a  philosopher  more  misrepresented 
and  maligned  than  Epicurus.  It  may  not  be 
too  late  to  come  to  his  rescue,  as  he  died  only 
two  centuries  more  than  two  thousand  years 


186      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

ago.  In  these  years,  to  be  sure,  slanderous  mis- 
conceptions have  become  so  firmly  intrenched 
that  it  will  probably  take  another  two  thousand 
two  hundred  years  to  rout  them.  Wordsworth 
voices  the  general  view  when  he  refers  to  epi- 
cureans who  "yield  up  their  souls  to  a  voluptu- 
ous unconcern";  while  the  dictionaries  indulge 
in  nonsensical  talk  about  epicures  as  "given  to 
indulgence  in  sensual  pleasures,"  or  as  "pur- 
suing the  pleasures  of  sense  as  the  chief  good." 

There  are  plenty  of  persons  who  do  that  sort 
of  thing ;  but  they  are  not  followers  of  Epicurus. 
He  expressly  and  emphatically  preached  the 
simple  life,  warning  his  disciples  to  abstain 
from  sensual  indulgence,  so  as  not  to  impair 
their  health  or  dull  the  edge  of  refined  enjoy- 
ment. True,  he  taught  that  pleasure  is  the  chief 
good,  but  he  also  preached  that  pleasures  which 
have  evil  consequences  should  be  rigidly  avoided, 
and  this  avoidance  constitutes,  in  his  doctrine, 
the  greatest  of  all  virtues. 

He  taught,  also,  that  mental  pleasures  are 
more  intense  than  the  pleasures  of  the  body. 
Don't  forget  that! 

Decidedly  no!  Sambo  and  Jumbo,  with  all 
their  subtle  and  stubborn  preferences  in  the 
matter  of  fruit,  greens,  and  drink,  are  not 
genuine  epicures,  and  that  makes  them  seem 
quite  human,  for  most  humans  are  not  epicures, 
either.  If  they  were  I  need  not  have  written 
my  book  on  Food  and  Flavor,  which  is  nothing 


«  ARE  PIGS  EPICURES?  187 

more  or  less  than  an  attempt  to  show  that  there 
can  be  no  health  or  strength  or  enjoyment  of 
life  unless  we  enjoy  the  right  food  the  right  way. 

IF   ALL   WERE   EPICURES 

If  everybody  were  as  epicurean  as  I  am,  what 
a  different  world  this  would  be!  How  most  of 
the  bad,  mediocre,  and  good  things  would  be 
swept  away,  leaving  only  the  best!  Insipid 
fruits,  wilted  vegetables,  frozen  fish  and  meats, 
denatured  bread  and  cereals,  and  all  other 
objectionable  things  would  disappear,  because 
no  one  would  buy  them.  Health,  happiness, 
and  longevity  would  flourish  as  never  before. 
Everybody  would  have  his  own  garden  and  raise 
in  it  only  the  most  improved  vegetables,  fruits, 
and  flowers,  and  Luther  Burbank  would,  of 
course,  be  Secretary  of  Horticulture.  But,  no! 
I  wouldn't  have  him  leave  his  experimental 
gardens  at  Santa  Rosa  and  Sebastopol  for  all 
the  world.  Wonderful  things  are  brewing 
there. 

Luther  Burbank  is  a  floral  as  well  as  a  vege- 
tarian and  fruitarian  epicure — for  epicurism 
includes  aesthetics  as  well  as  gastronomy.  Epi- 
curus was  right  when  he  taught  that  mental 
pleasures  are  keener  than  bodily  joys.  To  eat 
the  improved  Santa  Rosa  fruits  and  berries  is  a 
delight,  but  it  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the 
thrills  which  the  sight  of  Santa  Rosa  flowers 
gives. 


188      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

The  other  morning  I  was  moved  to  tears  by 
the  indescribable  glory  of  my  bed  of  Burbank's 
Shirley  Art  poppies — Art  poppies,  indeed!  for 
no  genius  among  the  great  painters  ever  con- 
ceived anything  more  delicate  in  varied  loveli- 
ness of  color  and  texture.  Look  at  the  marvelous 
color  pictures  in  the  ninth  volume  of  Burbank's 
works — there  is  nothing  equal  to  them  in  all  the 
illustrated  books  I  have  ever  seen — and  if  you 
don't  have  a  bed  of  Santa  Rosa  Art  Shirleys  in 
your  garden  next  summer  you  are  not  a  flower 
epicure.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  about  them 
later  on. 


CHAPTER  XXI.  EDUCATED 
STRAWBERRIES  AND 
BURBANK  PLUMS 

HOW    much    will    strawberries    cost    in 
1940?     About  eight  dollars  a  quart! 
How    do    I    know?     Well,    I    got    a 
"condition"    in    arithmetic    (as    well 
as   in   algebra   and   geometry)    when 
I    entered    Harvard,    but    I    can    do 
some  figuring,  nevertheless.     Twenty  summers 
ago  I  spent  a  month  with  one  of  my  sisters,  who 
lived  near  East  Portland,  Oregon.     Her  home 
had    three    great    assets — a    glorious    view    of 
Mount  Hood,  snowclad  all  summer;     some  re- 
markable cherry  trees,   of  which  more   anon; 
and  a  large  strawberry  bed.    Oregon  is  as  famous 
for  its  fragrant  wild  strawberries  as  France  is 
for  its  f raises  des  bois;    give  these  luscious 
berries  the  advantages  of  a  "college  education" 
in  a  garden,  as  Mark  Twain  would  say,  and — 
well,   if  Webster  could  have  tasted  them  he 
would  have  defined  ambrosia  in  his  dictionary 
not  as  food  of  the  gods,  but  simply  as  Oregon 
strawberries. 

Ambrosia  was  so  easy  to  raise  in  that  state 
that  the  market  was  glutted.  It  cost  one  cent 
for  a  basket,  and  another  cent  for  a  Chinaman 
to  fill  it  with  berries.  And  the  Portland  grocers 
refused  to  pay  more  than  two  cents  a  quart! 
Consequently  these  incomparable  berries  were 

13 


190      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         1? 

left  unpicked — except  those  we  selected  for  our 
table.  Now,  to  jump  from  Portland,  Oregon, 
to  Portland,  Maine,  or  thereabouts,  we  were 
paying  for  strawberries,  in  1920,  forty  cents  a 
quart.  That's  just  twenty  times  as  much  as 
was  paid  twenty  years  ago;  consequently  twenty 
years  hence  strawberries  will  be  twenty  times 
forty  cents,  or  eight  dollars  a  quart — any 
schoolboy  could  figure  that  out. 

If,  at  present  prices,  more  than  twenty-five 
million  dollars'  worth  of  strawberries  are  sold  in 
the  United  States  every  year,  twenty  years  hence, 
at  eight  dollars  a  quart —  But  let  us  drop 
arithmetic,  it  isn't  popular — boys  usually  make 
a  bonfire  of  their  mathematical  school  books. 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  Americans  eat 
half  of  all  the  strawberries  marketed  in  the 
world  (when  we  like  a  thing  we  do  like  it, 
"sure")  and  that  New  York  is  the  greatest 
market  for  this  berry  in  the  world.  It  was  so, 
for  that  matter,  as  long  ago  as  1849,  when  the 
Erie  Railroad  alone  brought  into  the  city 
(population,  300,000)  no  fewer  than  eighty  thou- 
sand baskets  in  one  day.  Yet  a  century  ago,  in 
the  year  1820,  a  few  wagon  loads  of  Hackensack 
berries,  brought  across  the  Hudson  in  sailing 
sloops  twice  a  week,  when  wind  and  tide  per- 
mitted, constituted  New  York's  entire  supply, 
as  F.  H.  Hexamer  informs  us;  and — listen! — a 
period  of  three  weeks  comprised  the  limits  of  the 
strawberry  season! 


1?  EDUCATED  FRUITS  191 

Three  weeks!  At  present,  if  we  have  plenty 
of  money,  we  can  have  them  every  month  in  the 
year  and  everybody  can  have  them  six  months 
out  of  the  twelve;  partly  because  they  come 
first  from  the  far  South  and  finally  from  the  far 
North,  but  chiefly  because  the  growers  have  in 
course  of  time  developed  five  types  of  berries — 
the  very  early,  early,  midseason,  late,  and  very 
late.  The  word  "everbearing,"  applied  to  any 
particular  variety,  must  at  present  be  taken  with 
a  grain  of  chloride  of  sodium,  but  we  are  getting 
there.  Hundreds  of  garden  maniacs  have  been 
busy  trying  to  improve  the  strawberry  in  various 
directions.  Scarcely  a  dozen  of  them,  we  are 
told  by  Prof.  S.  W.  Fletcher  of  the  Pennsylvania 
State  College  (who  has  written  a  fascinating 
book  on  The  Strawberry  in  North  America) 
have  had  any  financial  reward  for  their  efforts, 
but  creative  gardening  is  such  an  enjoyable 
occupation  that  few  object  even  if  it  is  only  a 
labor  of  love. 

JOHN   BURROUGHS  DELIGHTED 

Luther  Burbank,  as  usual,  is  in  the  lead. 
He  has  created  some  luscious  new  varieties  by 
hybridizing  our  best  berries  with  choice  seeds 
from  Chile  and  other  countries  where  this  berry 
excels,  wild  or  cultivated.  I  myself  had  the  good 
fortune  to  taste  some  of  these  one  afternoon  at 
Santa  Rosa,  California,  in  company  with  John 
Burroughs,  who  was  quite  ecstatic  over  the  Pat- 


192      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

agonia,  our  host's  latest  creation.  It  had  a 
delicious  pineapple  flavor,  blended  with  its  own 
aroma;  I  also  tasted  a  white  berry  which  made 
me  exclaim  that  to  put  sugar  and  cream  on  it 
would  be  a  crime. 

The  importance  of  Burbank's  new  varieties  lies 
in  this,  that  he  has  aimed  at  flavor  rather  than 
at  color  and  size.  To  cite  his  own  words,  "I 
thought  that  a  good  home  strawberry  that  is 
tender,  sweet,  and  of  fair  size,  rather  than  of 
exaggerated  proportions,  combining  these  quali- 
ties with  the  exquisite  flavor  of  some  of  the  wild 
berries,  would  be  a  distinct  acquisition." 

The  final  stage  in  the  perfecting  of  the  straw- 
berry will  be,  in  his  opinion,  the  elimination  of 
the  seeds  which  dot  its  surface,  partly  because 
they  mar  the  texture  of  the  berry  and  partly 
because  they  make  a  needless  draft  on  the  energy 
of  the  plant.  But  this  is  less  important  than  his 
emphasizing  of  the  flavor.  Poor,  dear  flavor! 
It's  the  one  thing  the  consumer  really  wants 
(though  he  coquets  foolishly  with  size  and  color) 
and  the  one  thing  he  seldom  gets  at  its  best, 
unless  he  raises  choice  varieties  in  his  own 
garden  and  lets  them  ripen  on  the  vine. 

It's  an  old  story,  this  conspiracy  against  the 
consumer,  this  substitution  by  wholesale  and 
retail  marketmen  of  productiveness  and  good 
shipping  qualities  for  flavor;  this  triumph  of 
mediocrity  over  merit.  For  twenty  years  the 
berry  favored  by  them  was  the  Wilson,  which 


«$  EDUCATED  FRUITS  193 

that  noted  epicure  and  preacher,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  denounced  as  "the  wickedest  berry 
that  was  ever  indulged  with  liberty.  It  is  an 
invention  by  which  the  producers  make  money 
out  of  the  consumers*  misery.  It  has  every 
quality  of  excellence  except  in  the  matter  of 
eating.  ...  It  might  live  in  a  sugar  bowl  and  be 
acerb  and  crabbed  still." 

There  were  luscious  berries  in  Beecher's  day, 
but  the  public  had  no  chance  to  buy  them.  And 
to-day?  Listen  to  Professor  Fletcher:  "Aroma 
has  been  sacrificed  as  well  as  flavor.  A  handful 
of  the  early  Pines  and  Scarlets  perfumed  a  room 
with  delightful  and  appetizing  fragrance.  Few 
contemporaneous  sorts  have  more  than  a  faint 
and  fleeting  aroma."  Among  those  that  have 
aroma  and  flavor  are  Brandywine  (sit  venia 
verbo!),  Monarch  (ditto),  Longworth's  Prolific, 
and  some  Texas  varieties  which  Burbank 
crossed  with  Chilean,  Virginian,  and  Californian 
sorts  before  he  reached  the  ideal  berry  referred 
to,  after  he  had  grown  and  fruited  some  half 
million  seedlings,  representing  every  corner  of 
the  world. 

The  time  may  come  when  every  man  will  be 
his  own  gardener,  and  then  all  will  be  able  to 
enjoy  such  berries.  To  be  sure,  considerable  hor- 
ticultural skill  is  required  to  raise  strawberries, 
and  everybody  is  at  the  mercy  of  rain  and  shine. 
The  sun  is  needed  to  supply  the  fragrance  and 
flavor,  and  as  for  rain  or  irrigation,  "it  is  defi- 


194      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         IB 

nitely  known  that  it  takes  six  hundred  barrels  per 
acre  to  mature  a  crop  after  the  fruit  is  set." 

For  most  of  us  evidently  there  is  little  hope 
for  better  berries  unless  we  can  reform  the 
marketmen.  Luckily,  even  mediocre  berries 
have  their  charm — at  least  with  cream  and 
sugar,  or  in  shortcake. 

BURBANK'S  NEW  PLUM  FLAVORS 

Burbank's  favorite  method  of  using  seeds  or 
grafts  of  wild  berries  to  impart  a  rich  flavor  to 
his  new  hybrid  creations  is  also  exemplified  in 
his  cherries  and  plums.  I  referred  to  some 
remarkable  cherry  trees  on  my  sister's  place; 
they  were  blends  of  wild  and  cultivated  varieties, 
and  their  flavor  was  superlatively  rich  and 
entrancing.  I  am  glad  to  know  that  Mr.  Bur- 
bank  is  at  present  engaged  in  work  along  this 
line.  I  wish  also  he  would  give  the  sour  cherry 
a  tougher  skin  to  make  it  easier  to  transport 
ripe  to  a  distance.  To  me  a  sour  cherry  is  infi- 
nitely more  luscious  than  the  sweet  sorts.  The 
best  I  ever  ate  were  at  the  Swiss  chateau  of 
Paderewski,  who  shared  my  preference.  They 
were  a  variety  he  had  brought  from  Poland. 
Remember  that  no  less  an  epicure  than  Lucullus 
introduced  the  sour  cherry  into  Europe.  Re- 
member also  that  when  thoroughly  tree-ripened 
"the  so-called  sour  cherry  is  nearly  sweet  and 
the  mild  acid  is  very  wholesome,"  to  cite  E.  P. 
Powell,  whose  The  Country  Home  is  the  best 


-£  EDUCATED  FRUITS  195 

guide  I  know  for  amateur  gardeners  and  orchard  - 
ists  who  wish  to  raise  better  berries  and  fruits 
than  can  be  brought  from  the  horribly  selfish  and 
short  -  sighted  marketmen  —  short  -  sighted  be- 
cause it  seldom  seems  to  occur  to  them  that 
when  fruits  are  alluring  in  flavor  customers  are 
tempted  to  buy  ten  times  as  often  as  when  they 
are  insipid. 

A  word  about  the  plums  in  which  Burbank 
has  so  marvelously  blended  the  flavors  of  Ameri- 
can wild  varieties  with  European,  Japanese, 
Chinese,  American,  and  other  cultivated  kinds. 
What  importance  he  himself  attaches  to  these 
new  hybrids  you  may  infer  from  the  fact  that 
he  has  devoted  a  whole  volume  to  them  in  the 
gloriously  illustrated  set  of  twelve  books  which 
relate  his  life  work  in  detail — books  which  no 
progressive  gardener  can  afford  to  be  without. 
The  plum  volume  is  as  fascinating  as  a  romance 
— more  so  to  those  afflicted  with  the  gardening 
mania.  I  have  read  it  three  times. 

In  1912  no  fewer  than  564  carloads  of  Burbank 
plums,  making  more  than  one-third  of  all  ship- 
ments, were  railroaded  east  from  California; 
yet  the  best  of  the  Burbank  varieties  are  only 
beginning  to  be  known;  they  are  the  result  of 
thirty  years  of  hybridizing — of  tossing  seedlings 
from  all  the  world  into  the  "Santa  Rosa  melting 
pot,"  as  he  calls  it.  Since  1885  he  has  intro- 
duced sixty-two  varieties.  Among  them  are 
plums  the  flavor  of  which  suggests  the  peach, 


196      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         Tg 

apricot,  apple,  pear,  lemon,  orange,  banana, 
pineapple,  and  berries  of  various  kinds.  Spe- 
cially notable  for  flavor  are  the  Nixie  and  the 
Geewhiz — the  latter  so  named  because  a  visitor, 
after  biting  into  one,  used  that  word  to  express 
his  gustatory  delight. 

The  "Reds"  in  the  market  are  among  the 
most  interesting.  They  are  descendants  of  a 
Satsuma  plum  which  the  Japanese  call  Uchi- 
Beni  (red  inside),  imported  and  improved  by 
Burbank.  A  basket  of  these  is  on  my  table  as  I 
write  this,  filling  the  room  with  a  fragrance 
vying  and  blending  with  that  of  a  bunch  of 
rose-scented  peonies.1 

In  1920  Burbank  issued  a  list  of  new  and 
standard  fruit  trees,  walnuts,  and  berries 
marked  "Very  Special."  In  this  list  he  describes 
ten  more  of  his  plums,  among  them  "Beauty: 
the  best  shipping  plum  ever  produced;  great 
bearer;  big,  delicious  fruit;  extra  early,"  and 
"Thunder  Cloud:  New.  The  most  beautiful 
metallic  purple  crimson  foliage  ever  seen  on  any 
tree.  Fruit  good."  On  the  first  page  of  this 
list,  alas!  was  this  notice:  "These  will  never  be 
offered  again,  as  I  shall  discontinue  the  nursery 
business." 


1  If  you  have  your  own  orchard  and  want  to  try  some  of  the 
Burbank  plums  you  can  get  the  trees  of  some  of  his  best  varieties 
(Gold,  Early  Gold,  Santa  Rosa,  and  Indian  Blood-Duarte)  from 
Stark  Brothers  at  Louisiana,  Missouri.  Burbank  himself  sends  no 
trees  East.  There  are  ten  varieties  of  "red  inside"  plums,  all  of 
them  graduates  of  the  Burbank  Academy. 


CHAPTER  XXII.  COMMERCIAL 
VALUE  OF  BURBANK'S  NEW 
CREATIONS 

HE  has  about  as  much  expression  in 
her  face  as  a  potato,"  a  famous 
prima  donna  once  said  to  me  in 
regard  to  another  opera  singer  whose 
voice  was  more  remarkable  than  her 
intelligence. 

The  romantic  story  of  how  Luther  Burbank 
was  helped  by  a  potato  ball  to  create  a  new 
epoch  not  only  in  potatodom,  but  in  horticul- 
ture in  general,  has  often  been  told,  but  usually 
incorrectly.  My  brief  version  of  it  is  based  on 
his  own  words.  When  he  was  a  young  man, 
living  in  Lancaster,  Massachusetts  (where  he 
was  born  in  1849),  he  one  day  found  in  his 
patch  of  Early  Rose  potatoes  a  single  seed  ball. 
Such  balls  were  at  that  time  still  frequent  on 
other  kinds  of  potato  vines,  but  rare  on  the 
"advanced"  Early  Rose.  He  kept  an  eye  on  it, 
but  when  about  ripe  to  pick,  it  suddenly  disap- 
peared; fortunately,  after  careful  search,  he 
found  it  some  distance  away.  There  were 
twenty-six  seeds  in  this  ball;  all  but  three  of 
them  came  up,  and  a  few  months  later,  when  he 
dug  the  tubers,  those  in  each  of  the  twenty- three 
hills  all  differed  from  those  in  the  other  hills; 
for  potatoes,  like  apples,  very  seldom  come  true 
from  seed.  Some  of  the  new  tubers  were  "all 
eyes,"  others  h^d  enormous  eyebrows  or  pro- 


198      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *» 

duced  too  many  small  tubers,  or  had  rough  skins 
or  an  undesirable  shape,  and  so  on. 

There  were,  however,  two  honorable  excep- 
tions, and  these  were  destined  to  create  the  new 
epoch  in  the  potato  world.  These  tubers  were 
superior  to  the  parent,  and  superior  to  any 
variety  then  known;  they  were  larger,  whiter, 
more  uniform  in  size,  had  a  better  flavor,  and 
proved  to  be  more  productive  as  well  as  better 
able  to  resist  disease.  They  were  planted  the 
following  spring  and  became  the  ancestors  of 
the  Burbank  potato,  of  which  California  alone 
now  grows  over  seven  million  bushels  a  year. 

Burbank  himself — such  is  the  usual  fate  of 
inventors  and  discoverers — got  only  one  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  for  giving  the  world  the  best 
potato  it  has  ever  had.  He  modestly  thought  it 
worth  five  hundred  dollars,  but  the  first  dealer 
to  whom  it  was  offered  declined  it  curtly  and  so 
he  was  glad  to  accept  one  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  from  another  dealer;  it  was  just  enough 
for  buying  a  ticket  to  California. 

He  had  "tasted  blood";  the  results  achieved 
with  the  potato  ball  and  some  other  minor 
successes  gave  him  so  much  joy  that  he  resolved 
to  become  a  plant  breeder;  not,  however,  in 
bleak  New  England,  but  in  our  glorious  semi- 
tropical  state  where  nature  would  be  his  ally; 
the  state  where  Australian  gum  trees  reach  a 
height  of  seventy-five  feet  in  five  years;  where 
fuchsias  climb  to  the  window  sills  of  the  second 


«»  BURBANK'S  WORK  199 

story;  where  geraniums  and  veronicas  in  the 
front  yard  are  not  bushes,  but  trees.  Little  did 
he  dream,  when  he  crossed  the  continent  in 
1875,  that  he  was  destined  to  out- California 
California;  that  he  would  have  gardens  there 
after  seeing  which  the  most  distinguished  botan- 
ist and  plant  breeder  of  Europe,  Prof.  Hugo  de 
Vries  of  Amsterdam,  would  write  that  "the 
flowers  and  fruits  of  California  are  less  wonder- 
ful than  the  flowers  and  fruits  which  Mr.  Bur- 
bank  has  made";  that  "Luther  Burbank  is  the 
greatest  breeder  of  plants  the  world  has  ever 
known";  and  that  "the  magnitude  of  his  work 
excels  everything  that  was  ever  done  before, 
even  by  large  firms  in  the  course  of  generations." 
While  the  California  climate  helped  to  bring 
about  such  an  astonishing  result,  Luther  Bur- 
bank's  horticultural  genius  and  his  infinite 
capacity  for  taking  pains  were  the  prime  factors 
in  his  success.  He  purchased  a  four-acre  place 
in  Santa  Rosa,  about  fifty  miles  north  of  San 
Francisco.  The  land  was  "about  as  poor  as 
could  be  found";  it  had  been  the  bottom  of  a 
pond.  He  drained  it  with  tiles,  and  then,  he 
relates,  "as  manure  was  cheap  near  by,  I  had 
eighteen  hundred  loads  of  it  put  on  the  four 
acres."  Thus  this  very  poor  land,  which  nobody 
had  wanted,  was  transformed  into  the  earth's 
chief  garden  spot;  nowhere  else  in  this  wide 
world  could  you  find  another  four-acre  patch  on 
which  so  many  historic  garden  events  have  taken 


200      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

place.  In  1885  he  added  a  plot  of  land  at 
Sebastopol,  eight  miles  from  Santa  Rosa;  this 
was  larger — eighteen  acres — and  has  been  used 
ever  since  as  testing  ground  for  trees  and  flowers 
and  vegetables.  He  chose  this  spot  because  it 
provided  a  variety  of  soils  and  degrees  of  mois- 
ture. In  the  dry  California  climate  it  was  a 
tremendous  advantage  to  have  garden  and 
orchard  land  some  parts  of  which  "are  so  moist 
that  the  water  seeps  up  to  the  surface  throughout 
the  season,  and  the  remainder  is  so  loose  and 
friable  that  moisture  may  be  found  all  through 
the  summer  even  six  months  after  rain  has 
fallen  upon  it." 

There  were  plant  breeders,  especially  in  Ori- 
ental countries,  centuries  before  this  American 
harnessed  his  twenty-two  acres  at  Santa  Rosa 
and  Sebastopol,  but  W.  S.  Harwood,  who  wrote 
a  valuable  book  on  Burbank's  New  Creations 
in  Plant  Life,  did  not  claim  too  much  when  he 
said  that  "not  all  the  plant  breeders  who  have 
preceded  or  accompanied  him  have  done  so 
much  for  the  world."  That  was  twenty  years 
ago,  and  in  the  meantime  the  output  of  novelties 
has  been  doubled,  trebled,  quintupled,  and  to- 
day, after  passing  the  threescore-and-ten  age, 
the  wonder  worker  is  busier  and  more  beneficent 
than  ever. 

A  BIRD'S-EYE   VIEW 

Just  now  [Mr.  Burbank  wrote  to  me  on  September  11, 
1920]  I  have  something  between  five  and  six  thousand 


^  BURBANK'S  WORK  201 

experiments  on  hand,  and  I  am  raising  plants  for  im- 
provement from  my  collectors  all  over  the  world.  Just 
now  I  find  my  most  interesting  plants  are  collected  by 
the  Guanaco  Indians  under  the  guidance  of  missionaries 
in  Paraguay,  which  has  a  climate  somewhat  similar  to 
ours,  and  the  plant  life  there  is  less  known  to  the  civilized 
world  than  that  of  any  other  part  of  the  globe.  I  am 
also  receiving  seeds  of  many  new  wild  plants  from 
Chile,  Patagonia,  Peru,  Central  America,  Mexico, 
western  China,  the  Himalayas,  Alaska,  Australia, 
Africa,  New  Zealand,  and  other  countries.  Not  one  in 
fifty  of  the  plants  raised  from  these  wild  native  seeds  is 
worthy  of  special  care,  but  some  of  them  are  of  priceless 
value  in  the  production  of  new  varieties  of  fruits,  grains, 
grasses,  trees,  and  flowers. 

During  the  war  my  work  was  mostly  for  grains.  The 
"quality"  wheat  which  I  sent  out  has  15  per  cent  of 
gluten — I  think  the  highest  in  this  important  element 
of  any  wheat  ever  produced.  It  is  a  white  wheat,  in 
some  respects  much  like  the  Marquis  which  is  so  exten- 
sively grown  in  British  America,  and  grows  everywhere 
from  Saskatchewan,  in  the  north,  to  Van  Diemen's 
Land,  in  the  south,  ripening  its  crop  much  before  other 
varieties,  so  that  it  escapes  rust  and  many  other  diseases 
which  shorten  the  crop  of  wheat  in  the  United  States. 
It  took  first  prize  over  all  other  wheats  in  Canada  last 
season — 96  per  cent  perfect  of  a  possible  100. 

I  have  also  a  great  number  of  experiments  with  rye, 
oats,  barley,  and  some  new  grains;  will  have  another 
new  tomato  to  offer  soon,  and  plums,  grapes,  chestnuts, 
berries,  forest  and  shade  trees,  and  flowers  and  fruits 
without  number. 

An  interesting  glimpse  of  the  activities  of  a 
man  of  seventy-two!  How  can  he  do  it?  Of 
course  he  has  plenty  of  helpers,  but  every 


202      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

experiment  is  personally  guided  by  his  master 
mind.  "Such  a  knowledge  of  nature  and  such 
ability  to  handle  plant  life  would  be  possible 
only  to  one  possessing  genius  of  a  high  order," 
wrote  Professor  de  Vries,  after  visiting  Burbank. 
He  recognized  at  once  wherein  Burbank  differed 
from  his  predecessors  and  contemporaries.  They 
had  all  worked  on  a  much  smaller  scale,  a  few 
experiments  at  a  time,  while  he  supervised 
thousands  at  a  time  and  most  of  them  on 
a  vast  scale  that  no  one  had  ever  dreamed  of 
before. 

When  you  have  one  hundred  thousand  plants 
of  one  kind  to  select  from,  the  chance  of  finding 
what  you  want  is  just  one  thousand  times 
greater  than  if  you  have  only  one  hundred 
plants.  Burbank  has  sometimes  had  several 
hundred  thousand  of  one  kind  at  a  time — lilies, 
poppies,  plum  trees,  and  so  on;  and  when  he 
had  selected  the  individual  plants  that  came 
nearest  his  ideal  he  had  the  others  pulled  out 
and  made  a  bonfire  of.  In  a  single  year  he  has 
had  as  many  as  fourteen  of  these  bonfires,  some 
of  which  consumed  plants  that,  at  nurseryman's 
prices,  were  worth  up  to  ten  thousand  dollars. 
He  had  no  time  or  room  to  bother  with  them. 

SAVING   SPACE,   TIME,   AND   MONEY 

One  of  his  ingenious  ways  to  save  space,  time, 
and  money  is  grafting  a  number  of  varieties  on 
a  single  tree.  Grafting  a  few  varieties  of  fruit 


«  BURBANK'S   WORK  203 

on  a  tree  of  another  variety — say  a  Red  Astra- 
chan  on  a  Baldwin  apple  tree — had  been  prac- 
ticed for  generations,  but  it  remained  for 
Burbank  to  graft  five  hundred  and  more  varieties 
of  cherries  or  plums  on  a  single  tree;  and  by  not 
only  short-cutting  through  grafting,  but  short- 
cutting  grafting  itself,  as  explained  in  his  books, 
he  has  been  able  to  produce  fruit  five  or  six 
years  sooner  than  by  nature's  usual  process — 
surely  a  stroke  of  horticultural  genius,  which, 
once  widely  applied,  will  prove  of  tremendous 
practical,  commercial  value.  Had  the  five 
hundred  kinds  of  cherries  he  had  on  one  tree 
all  been  grown  separately,  and  the  same  with 
the  five  hundred  kinds  of  plums,  he  would  have 
had  to  find  room  and  food  and  care  for  a  thou- 
sand trees  instead  of  for  two  only.  And  think 
of  the  greater  convenience  of  his  way  for  com- 
parison and  selection  for  size,  color,  flavor,  and 
other  qualities  desired  in  fruit! 

In  the  letter  from  which  I  have  just  cited  a 
few  paragraphs,  Mr.  Burbank  refers  to  the 
seeds  he  is  receiving  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 
Therein  lies  another  of  the  secrets  which  explain 
why  he  has  been  able  to  do  more  in  the  way  of 
creating  new  or  improved  fruits,  flowers,  vege- 
tables, and  trees  than  all  other  plant  breeders 
of  the  past  and  present  combined.  The  United 
States  Government's  Bureau  of  Plant  Industry 
has  done  splendid  work  in  introducing  Russian 
durum  or  macaroni  wheat,  Egyptian  cotton, 


204      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

drought-resisting  Siberian  alfalfa,  and  other 
useful  products  of  foreign  lands;  but  no  one 
individual  has  ever  imported  foreign  seeds  of 
the  aforementioned  great  value  so  largely  as 
Burbank  or  so  persistently  and  with  such  instinc- 
tive knowledge.  Nor  has  anyone  ever  hybrid- 
ized, or  intermarried,  so  many  wild  plants  with 
cultivated  ones  of  many  countries,  thus  giving 
the  new  varieties  the  greater  health  and  richer 
flavor  of  the  wild  ones,  combined  with  the 
greater  size,  finer  texture,  and  superior  sweetness 
of  the  cultivated  kinds.  Burbank's  twelve 
volumes — a  most  fascinating  autobiography — 
are  replete  with  details  on  this  subject. 

BONFIRES  AND   MORAL   CHARACTER 

Regarding  Burbank's  bonfires  I  want  to  say 
a  few  more  words.  I  remarked  that  he  had  no 
room  or  time  to  bother  about  the  rejected  plants. 
But  why  didn't  he  sell  them?  Many  of  them 
had  points  of  superiority  to  the  average  stock  and 
would  have  been  eagerly  bought  by  nurserymen. 
Take  the  case  of  fifteen  hundred  gladiolus 
bulbs  which  he  deliberately  destroyed,  though 
they  had  an  easy  market  value  of  a  dollar 
apiece.  Let  the  great  plant  educator  answer  in 
his  own  words:  "It  is  better  to  run  the  risk  of 
losing  a  perfected  product,  through  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  elements  which  went  into  it,  than  to 
issue  forth  to  the  world  a  lot  of  second  bests 
which  have  within  them  the  power  of  self-per- 


^  BURBANK'S  WORK  205 

petuation  and  multiplication,  and  which,  if  we 
do  not  destroy  them  now,  will  clutter  the  earth 
with  inferiority  or  with  mediocrity." 

These  costly  bonfires  thus  throw  light  on 
Luther  Burbank's  moral  character.  He  needs 
money — lots  of  money — for  his  many  costly 
experiments;  but  he  is  not  willing  to  make 
any  of  it  by  selling  products  that  fall  short  of 
his  highest  ideals  and  that  might  disappoint 
those  who  expect  only  the  best  from  him. 
Imagine  how  such  a  man  must  suffer  from  the 
dishonest  practices  of  some  scoundrelly  seeds- 
men and  nurserymen  who  attach  his  name  to 
inferior  plants,  seeds,  and  trees  that  have  no 
Burbank  blood  in  them  at  all.  There  is  real 
pathos  in  the  short  paragraph  on  this  subject 
printed  in  his  1920  catalogue  of  new  creations  in 
seeds:  "A  good  name  is  a  treasure  for  unprin- 
cipled dealers  to  trade  on;  tons  of  seeds  and 
thousands  of  trees  and  plants  of  uncertain  value 
are  sold  over  my  name  throughout  America 
each  season.  There  is  no  redress." 

No  redress  for  the  harm  done  to  his  name  by 
these  scoundrels !  A  few  years  ago  I  was  visiting 
a  famous  prima  donna  whose  husband  had 
large  and  beautiful  gardens  and  nurseries. 
When  I  asked  the  head  gardener  if  he  had  any 
of  the  Burbank  novelties  he  passionately  re- 
sponded that  he  had  none;  he  had  "tried  some, 
but  had  found  them  worthless." 

"Did  you  buy  them  from  Burbank  himself?" 


206      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS          £ 

I  asked,  and  he  answered:  "No;  got  'em  in 
New  York." 

He  had  been  fooled;  he  knew  nothing  about 
Burbank's  moral  character  and  high  business 
principles;  yet  here  he  was,  abusively  biased 
against  one  of  the  most  honest  men  that  ever 
lived,  because  somebody  else  had  cheated  him! 

Another  class  of  persons  who  speak  dis- 
respectfully of  Burbank  are  those  who  expected 
so  much  of  his  seeds  that  they  thought  these 
must  do  wonders  under  any  and  all  conditions. 
Now  the  great  plant  breeder  has  achieved  many 
surprising  feats  resembling  miracles,  but  he  has 
not  been  able  to  do  away  with  the  laws  of  nature. 
If  you  buy  a  fifty-cent  packet  of  the  choicest 
pansy  seeds  and  plant  them  in  a  sunny  bed  with 
poor  soil  and  no  water  they  will  produce  flowers 
smaller  and  less  beautiful  than  those  you  can 
get  from  a  five-cent  packet  of  ordinary  pansies 
in  rich  soil  with  afternoon  shade  and  plenty  of 
moisture. 

One  day  in  September  I  saw  a  Burbank 
Shirley  poppy  plant  grown  from  a  seed  that 
had  been  accidentally  dropped  on  the  lawn  near 
my  poppy  bed.  It  had  been  mowed  down 
repeatedly,  and  when  it  finally  bloomed  it  was 
six  inches  high  and  the  flower  no  larger  than  a 
nickel.  Two  feet  away,  in  the  cultivated  bed, 
Burbank  poppies  from  the  same  seed  packet 
grew  to  a  height  of  three  feet,  with  flowers  five 
or  six  inches  across. 


<£  BURBANK'S  WORK  207 

A  GARDENER  OF  A  NEW  KIND 

Being  a  man  of  genius,  Luther  Burbank  has 
to  suffer  the  usual  fate  of  the  truly  great. 
Most  professional  pianists  and  violinists  speak 
with  jealous  contempt  of  Paderewski  and  Fritz 
Kreisler.  In  the  same  way  some  of  the  men  who 
are  paid  by  the  government  to  produce  new  and 
improved  plants  or  trees  in  the  United  States 
experiment  stations — which  few  of  them  ever 
do — never  fail  to  give  Burbank  a  slam  where  it 
is  possible  to  work  one  in  edgeways,  or  "damn 
with  faint  praise."  I  happen  to  know  that  some 
of  these  men  have  asked  Burbank  to  write  essays 
for  them  in  order  to  permit  them  to  hold  down 
their  positions! 

An  amusing  illustration  of  the  professional, 
academic  attitude  toward  "mere  genius"  occurs 
in  Professor  Bailey's  otherwise  excellent  book  on 
Plant  Breeding.  There  is,  of  course,  a  chapter 
about  Burbank — that  couldn't  be  avoided.  The 
professor  admits  that  Burbank  "stands  alone." 
He  is  a  "gardener  of  a  new  kind";  he  stands  for 
a  "great  new  idea  in  American  horticulture"; 
he  has  demonstrated  that  plants  can  be  made  to 
do  the  most  surprising  things;  his  work  is  "a 
contribution  to  the  satisfaction  of  living  and  is 
beyond  all  price." 

Nothing  could  be  truer.  But  the  professor 
also  says:  "Usually  I  think  of  him  as  a  plant 
lover  rather  than  plant  breeder.  It  is  of  little 
consequence  to  me  whether  he  produces  good 


208      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

commercial  varieties  or  not."  The  number  of 
"really  useful  things  that  have  been  introduced 
by  Burbank  is  proportionally  small."  And 
then  he  has  a  chapter  pointedly  headed  "A 
Practical  Plant  Breeder,"  which  is  devoted  to 
the  man  who  gave  the  world  several  new 
varieties  of  beans  and  took  the  string  out  of 
pod  beans. 

No  one  has  rejoiced  more  than  I  at  Calvin 
N.  Keeney's  clever  feat  of  removing  the  annoying 
and  indigestible  string  from  pod  beans,  but 
Burbank's  experimental  gardens  have  given  the 
world  a  hundred  improvements  and  novelties 
of  as  great  and  much  greater  '  'practical"  and 
commercial  value.  In  justice  to  Professor 
Bailey  it  should  be  added  that  he  wrote  the  book 
referred  to  nearly  two  decades  ago.  At  that 
time  only  a  few  of  Burbank's  new  or  improved 
vegetables  and  fruits  had  got  into  the  markets. 
He  has  added  a  great  many  since  that  time;  but, 
as  he  himself  has  frequently  pointed  out,  it 
usually  takes  from  ten  to  twenty  years  to 
introduce  a  new  variety  to  the  public,  however 
obvious  its  merits.  "It  is  far  less  difficult,"  he 
writes,  "to  produce  a  valuable  new  plant  than 
to  convince  the  public  of  its  value." 

In  food  matters  the  public  is  singularly  con- 
servative and  slow  to  move.  My  main  object 
in  writing  this  chapter  is  to  exhort  the  American 
public  to  wake  up  to  a  full  realization  of  how 
much  Luther  Burbank  has  added  to  the  available 


*$  BURBANK'S   WORK  209 

pleasures  of  life  and  the  opportunities  for  making 
fortunes.  To  give  a  full  list  would  make  this 
chapter  too  much  like  a  catalogue;  so  I  will  call 
attention  to  only  a  few  of  the  most  important 
novelties. 

It  is  time  to  stop  talking  about  this  man's 
wizardlike  but  impractical  feats,  such  as  growing 
potatoes  on  tomato  vines  or  producing  an  apple 
sour  on  one  side,  sweet  on  the  other.  Scien- 
tifically such  things  are  tremendously  interesting 
and  important,  showing  that  almost  anything 
can  be  done  with  fruits  and  plants,  and  opening 
up  brilliant  vistas  of  future  achievements;  but 
what  we  want  to  do  now  is  to  help  Burbank, 
while  he  is  still  with  us,  to  banish  mediocrity 
from  our  orchards  and  gardens  by  enriching 
them  with  the  numerous  products  of  his 
creative  genius  and  his  passion  for  the  best 
only. 

Burbank  seems  inclined  to  think  that  the 
most  interesting  of  his  fruits  is  the  stoneless 
plum.  One  of  the  proudest  moments  in  his  life 
was  when  a  visitor,  a  famous  pomologist,  cut 
into  one  of  these  plums  and,  to  his  utter  bewil- 
derment, found  it  had  no  pit.  Removing  the 
stone  was  not  only  a  master  stroke  of  horti- 
cultural ingenuity  and  perseverance,  but  it  has 
tremendous  commercial  importance.  The  time 
will  come,  he  believes,  when  all  the  plums  that 
come  into  our  markets  will  be  stoneless;  his 
hybrids  of  this  novelty  already  represent  almost 


210      GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         *» 

every  color  of  the  plum,  varying  in  size  and 
quality,  and  ripening  from  June  to  November. 

Not  only  is  a  plum  without  stone  pleasanter 
to  eat,  but — what  is  of  tremendous  commercial 
importance — a  tree  bearing  stoneless  plums  will 
yield  almost  twice  as  much  fruit  because  of  the 
saving  of  the  energy  previously  wasted  on 
growing  pits.  Along  this  line  Burbank's  example 
is  bound  to  revolutionize  stone-fruit  growing. 
It  will  take  many  years  to  do  this;  in  the  mean- 
time let  us  exert  pressure  on  the  orchardists  and 
marketmen  to  let  us  enjoy  the  best  of  the 
Burbank  plums  (twenty-seven  varieties  of  them 
were  shipped  East  last  year — over  a  million 
crates,  or  fifty  million  pounds)  instead  of  .toler- 
ating flavorless  trash  such  as  we  usually  have  to 
put  up  with.  One  of  the  surprising  Burbank 
plums  is  called  the  Bartlett.  This,  he  says,  "is 
so  much  superior  to  the  Bartlett  pear  in  its  own 
peculiar  flavor  and  fragrance  that  no  one  would 
choose  the  pear  if  the  plum  were  at  hand." 

Last  autumn  I  received  from  Mr.  Burbank  a 
box  of  delicious  prunes,  larger  and  sweeter  than 
any  French  prunes  I  have  ever  tasted,  with  a 
letter  dated  September  13th,  which  I  will  cite 
because  it  illustrates  the  epicurean  side  of  his 
genius,  without  which  he  could  not  have  made 
his  new  fruits  so  superior  to  others  in  flavor: 

As  you  are  the  acknowledged  champion  and  leading 
exponent  of  the  science  of  fragrance  and  flavor  in  foods, 


•»  BURBANK'S  WORK  211 

I  take  pleasure  in  sending  you  by  this  mail  a  sample  of 
my  new  "Standard"  prune,  just  as  we  dry  them  in  the 
sun,  without  any  processing  of  any  kind  except  to  split 
the  fruit  and  shake  out  the  wholly  freestone  seed. 

This,  like  all  California  fruit,  should  be  quickly  rinsed 
in  cold  water,  then  allowed  to  stand  in  cold  water  at 
least  twelve  hours  in  just  enough  water  to  cover  them, 
then  heated  to  nearly  the  boiling  point  for  an  hour  or 
so,  but  never  boiled.  All  dried  fruit  of  every  nature 
should  receive  this  treatment  to  obtain  the  best 
flavor. 

The  flesh  and  flavor  of  many  other  fruits — 
peaches,  apples,  cherries,  apricots,  quinces,  pa- 
paws — have  been  improved  in  Burbank's  gar- 
dens. Of  particular  interest  and  practical  value 
are  his  quinces  and  papaws.  For  thousands  of 
years  the  quince  had  been  neglected  and  it  was 
still  half  wild  when  he  undertook  to  educate  it. 
His  improved  Van  Deman  quince  received  the 
Wilder  Medal  of  the  American  Pomological 
Society  in  Washington  as  long  ago  as  1891.  In 
California  this  profitable  new  variety  sometimes 
yields  three  crops  in  one  season.  More  recently 
he  has  created  a  better  variety  still,  the  Pine- 
apple quince,  which  can  be  eaten  out  of  hand, 
like  an  apple — fulfilling,  at  last,  the  desire  of  all 
lovers  of  this  richly  flavored  fruit.  Then  came 
the  "Burbank"  quince,  which  adds  to  the 
merits  of  its  predecessors  the  absence  of  wool. 
He  has  grown  bushlike  quince  trees  scarcely 
waist  high,  yet  almost  breaking  under  the 
weight  of  the  fruit!  To  the  papaw,  which, 


212       GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         1? 

thanks  to  Burbank,  is  likely  to  be,  twenty 
years  hence,  as  important  a  commercial  asset 
as  plums  or  cherries,  I  shall  devote  a  special 
chapter. 

CHERRIES   AND   BERRIES 

Much  attention  has  been  given  at  Santa 
Rosa  to  making  the  cherry  more  luscious  and 
profitable.  The  Burbank,  the  Abundance,  the 
Giant,  and  others  combine  the  best  qualities  of 
many  carefully  chosen  ancestors.  (Would  that 
human  beings  could  thus  have  their  ancestors 
chosen  for  them!)  Burbank's  cherries  are 
bigger,  sweeter,  earlier  in  spring  as  well  as  later 
in  the  autumn,  more  sure  to  bear  a  crop,  and — 
most  important  of  all  from  a  commercial  point 
of  view — he  has  educated  the  cherry  trees  in 
his  orchard  to  grow  in  such  a  way  that  the 
leaves  protect  the  fruit  from  bird  robbers, 
while  the  dense  foliage  at  the  same  time  keeps 
off  the  rain  and  prevents  the  cracking  by  which 
millions  of  pounds  of  cherries  have  heretofore 
been  ruined  for  the  market. 

In  the  berry  patch,  Burbank  has  been  as  busy 
a  "practical"  worker  as  in  the  orchard,  providing 
opportunities  for  the  making  of  many  fortunes 
the  country  over.  It  is  an  old  joke  that  "black- 
berries are  green  when  they  are  red."  The 
wags  can  now  add,  "and  when  they  are  ripe 
they  are  white,"  for  Burbank  has  a  luscious  new 
white  blackberry.  That  he  has  removed  the 
thorns  from  the  blackberry  vines,  making  them 


<$  BURBANK'S   WORK  213 

as  smooth  as  ferns,  is  known  to  everybody,  and 
pickers  bless  him  for  it.  Most  people,  too,  have 
read  about  his  phenomenal  berry,  but  few 
know  what  a  big  thing  (it  is  the  largest  berry 
known)  and  what  a  luscious  morsel  he  has  made 
of  it  after  twenty-four  years  of  steady  improve- 
ment. It  is  even  finer  than  the  loganberry 
which  has  won  so  much  favor  the  last  few  years 
and  which  it  is  now  displacing;  it  combines  the 
blood  of  the  red  and  yellow  raspberries  and  the 
California  dewberry. 

The  neglected  and  despised  elderberries  have 
been  ennobled  and  made  commercially  valuable 
at  Santa  Rosa,  where  their  bitter  quality  has 
been  removed.  They  grow  in  "any  old  arid 
place";  they  can  be  dried  like  grapes  and  they 
make  excellent  pies — that  is,  Burbank's  im- 
proved variety  does.  But  pie  eaters  have  the 
surprise  of  their  lives  when  they  get  acquainted 
with  his  new  sunberry.  A  well-known  pro- 
fessor who  is  also  a  gardener  wrote  to  him: 
"Without  exception  I  place  a  sunberry  pie  at 
the  head  of  the  pie  list,  and  I  do  this  with  a  full 
appreciation  of  the  excellence  of  cherry  pie, 
apple  pie,  pumpkin  pie,  mince  pie,  berry  pie, 
etc."  In  view  of  America's  boundless  appetite 
for  pie,  Burbank  was  altogether  too  conserva- 
tive when  he  wrote  that  "a  dozen  large  packing 
firms  could  be  profitably  employed  in  canning 
this  fruit  for  two  or  three  months  each  season." 
The  sunberry  thrives  in  any  climate  and  yields 


214      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ¥ 

twenty-five  to  forty  thousand  pounds  per 
acre. 

Pie  plant  par  excellence  in  America  has 
been  rhubarb.  Burbank  has  created  a  Giant 
Perpetual  rhubarb  which  yields  enormous  juicy 
stalks  in  winter  as  well  as  in  summer,  except  in 
the  frozen  soil  of  the  north.  Elsewhere  it  has 
become  so  profitable  that  it  has  become  known 
as  "the  mortgage  lifter."  Another  vegetable 
the  commercial  value  of  which  has  been  im- 
mensely improved  at  Santa  Rosa  is  the  French 
(or  globe)  artichoke.  It  has  been  made  much 
larger,  more  succulent,  and  richer  in  flavor. 
The  French  artichoke,  with  its  delicious  fond, 
is  among  salads  what  terrapin  is  among  meats. 
I  am  eagerly  looking  for  a  gardener  who  wants 
to  get  rich  by  flooding  Eastern  markets  with 
Burbank  giant  artichokes,  driving  out  the  small, 
dry,  insipid  things  we  have  to  put  up  with  now. 
And  surely  there  is  "big  money"  coming  to 
those  wise  enough  to  grow  Burbank's  Ele- 
phant garlic  and  Giant  chives,  which  are  from 
ten  to  fifteen  times  as  large  as  the  common 
chives  and  garlic. 

"No  other  man  has  given  to  horticulture  so 
many  valuable  things  as  has  Luther  Burbank," 
says  Prof.  E.  J.  Wickson,  dean  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  of  the  University  of  Cali- 
fornia, corroborating  the  words  of  Pres.  David 
Starr  Jordan  of  the  Leland  Stanford  University : 
"Luther  Burbank  is  the  greatest  originator  of 


"8?  BURBANK'S  WORK  215 

new  and  valuable  forms  of  plant  life  of  this  or 
any  other  age."  In  an  address  before  the  House 
of  Representatives  at  Washington,  the  Hon. 
Everis  A.  Hayes  said:  "Ninety-five  per  cent  of 
the  plums  shipped  out  of  California,  for  example, 
are  of  the  varieties  originated  by  Mr.  Burbank. 
Practically  all  of  the  potatoes  raised  and  mar- 
keted in  our  state  are  Burbank  seedlings,  unques- 
tionably the  best  potatoes  ever  produced  in  the 
world." 

It  is  of  particular  interest  to  note  that  of  the 
three  most  prominent  American  contributions 
to  commercial  plant  life — potatoes,  corn,  and 
tobacco — two  have  been  perfected  through  the 
labors  of  this  gardener.  In  tobacco  he  is  not 
interested,  smokers  will  be  sorry  to  hear;  but 
one  of  his  floral  curiosities  is  a  hybrid  of  the 
tobacco  and  petunia  plants,  "a  very  curious 
plant  which  combined  the  characteristics  of 
both  parents.  Burbank  named  it  the  Nico- 
tunia.  It  was  facetiously  described  as  a  petunia 
that  had  acquired  the  tobacco  habit." 

Corn  is  entirely  a  product  of  human  horti- 
cultural sagacity.  Burbank  did  not  create  it; 
he  did  not  even  originate  the  sweetest  and  now 
most  popular  of  all  varieties  of  table  corn,  the 
Golden  Bantam;  but  he  has  greatly  enlarged  it 
and  made  it  far  more  profitable  to  grow  and  can 
than  the  original  by  increasing  the  number  of 
rows  on  each  cob  from  eight  rows  to  twelve  and 
more.  Do  you  realize  what  that  means?  It  has 


216      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

been  figured  that  if  a  single  kernel  were  added 
to  every  ear  grown  in  this  country  it  would  add 
over  five  million  extra  bushels  of  corn  to  the 
nation's  annual  harvest,  without  extra  cost  or 
labor.  He  has  added  not  one,  but  one  hundred, 
kernels  to  each  ear  of  the  Bantam  corn ! 

Commercially  speaking,  the  most  astonishing 
products  of  the  Santa  Rosa  and  Sebastopol 
plant  schools  are  perhaps  the  spineless  cactus-- 
transformed from  a  "vegetable  porcupine"  to 
slabs  as  smooth  as  a  watermelon — and  the 
royal  walnut  tree.  From  half  an  acre  Burbank 
had  one  year  five  hundred  tons  of  cactus  forage 
— a  forage  which  at  Los  Banos,  California, 
increased  the  cows'  milk  flow  75  per  cent  over 
the  amount  when  fed  on  dry  alfalfa  hay.  A 
tremendous  future  also  awaits  his  improved 
cactus  fruits,  of  which  there  are  many  kinds 
varying  in  flavor,  like  apples  or  pears.  As 
"fillers"  far  better  than  most  of  those  now  used 
they  will  be  eaten  in  billions  of  American  pies. 
Is  it  a  wonder  that  Burbank  has  said  that  his 
improved  spineless  cactus  "is  worth  more  than 
the  Burbank  potatoes  and  all  my  other  produc- 
tions combined"?  As  for  the  Royal  walnut,  a 
single  tree  has  yielded  in  one  year  forty-five 
bushels  of  nuts  in  the  husk.  But  that  is  only  a 
detail  in  its  commercial  value.  It  grows  nearly 
as  fast  as  the  Australian  eucalyptus,  requires  no 
care,  and  yields  timber  in  all  respects  superior 
to  that  of  the  common  black  walnut,  which  is 


«  BURBANK'S  WORK  217 

worth  up  to  eight  hundred  dollars  per  thousand 
feet. 

MONEY   VALUE   OF   IMPROVED   FLOWERS 

While  Luther  Burbank  has  thus  contributed 
to  the  wealth  of  nations  as  few  men  ever  have, 
he  is  at  the  same  time,  and  above  all  things,  an 
artist.  I  might  devote  several  pages  to  the 
change  "into  something  rich  and  strange"  he 
has  brought  about  in  daisies,  poppies,  roses, 
gladioli,  dahlias,  lilies,  and  dozens  of  other 
flowers,  enhancing  thereby  their  commercial 
value  in  proportion  to  their  greater  beauty  of 
form  and  color  and  their  more  delectable  fra- 
grance, not  to  speak  of  the  increased  vigor  and 
immunity  to  plant  diseases!  By  way  of  show- 
ing the  tremendous  commercial  possibilities  in 
improved  flowers  let  me  repeat  from  the  Pre- 
face a  few  lines  from  a  letter  written  to  me  by 
Mr.  Burbank : 

Twenty  years  ago  the  carnation  was  thought  to  be 
about  as  nearly  perfect  as  it  could  be  made.  On  a  visit 
to  Long  Island  I  told  Mr.  Charles  W.  Ward  a  simple 
thing  which  I  had  discovered  regarding  the  carnation, 
and  he  told  me,  before  he  died  here  in  California,  many 
times,  that  he  made  considerably  more  than  half  a  mil- 
lion dollars  out  of  the  carnation  from  my  plan,  as  he 
used  to  say,  "before  the  other  fellows  got  on  to  it." 

Theodore  Roosevelt  declared  that  "Mr.  Bur- 
bank  is  a  man  who  does  things  that  are  of  much 
benefit  to  mankind  and  we  should  do  all  in  our 
power  to  help  him."  Help  him,  that  is,  by  not 


218      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

waiting  a  decade  or  two  before  we  discover  his 
discoveries,  as  we  have  done  heretofore.  He  is 
ahead  of  his  time,  far  ahead,  like  most  men  of 
genius.  Let  us  mobilize  and  try  to  catch  up 
with  him  while  he  is  still  with  us. 

Burbankism  is  commercialism  in  a  higher, 
futuristic  sense — not  the  short-sighted  com- 
mercialism which  tries  to  compel  the  public  to 
buy  inferior  things  that  are  most  immediately 
profitable  to  the  dealers,  but  an  enlightened 
commercialism  which  understands  that  if  the 
public  is  provided  and  tempted  with  choice 
delicacies  like  Burbank's  new  creations  it  will 
buy  twenty  times  as  many  vegetables  and  fruits 
and  flowers  as  it  does  now.  Is  not  that  the  very 
soul  and  apotheosis  of  commercialism,  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  word? 


CHAPTER  XXIII.  JAPANESE  BUR- 
BANKS  AND  MORNING-GLORIES 


^"""TT'^'^HE 

* 

w 

im 

th 


Japanese  are  the  aesthetic  nation 
par  excellence;  no  doubt  of  that. 
With  us  devotion  to  beauty  is 
individual  and  exceptional;  with 
them  it  is  national — a  great  moral 
force  like  religious  devotion.  Imag- 
ine Americans  getting  up,  as  the  Japanese  do, 
to  attend  five-o'clock  garden  parties  to  see  the 
morning-glories  in  all  their  glory! 

To  be  sure,  there  are  morning-glories  and 
morning-glories.  We  think  ours,  as  they  climb 
up  on  strings  and  show  their  red,  white,  and 
blue  blossoms,  are  pretty,  and  so  they  are. 
To  a  Japanese  they  seem  "little  wild  things, 
like  weeds,  not  beautiful  or  worth  growing"; 
and  so  think  those  Americans  who  have  seen 
the  asagao,  especially  in  their  sublimated  stages 
of  owa  and  fukurin. 

Everybody  knows  how  much  more  beautiful 
the  Japanese  iris  and  the  Japanese  chrysanthe- 
mums are  than  any  varieties  of  these  flowers  we 
have  produced.  But  the  Japanese  flower  of 
flowers  is  the  morning-glory;  not  the  lovely 
thing  our  seedsmen  sell  under  that  name — a 
great  improvement  on  our  common  varieties — 
but  something  infinitely  more  lovely,  varied, 
and  ethereal;  morning-glories  worthy  of  the 
poetic  names  bestowed  on  them,  such  as  Frozen 
Moonlight,  Tuji's  Snows,  Foam  of  the  Sea, 


220      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *% 

Dragon's  Spume,  White  Cascade,  Hoar  Frost, 
Full  Moon.  Countless  poems  have  been  written 
on  them,  artists  have  perpetuated  them  on 
vases  and  paintings,  and  they  are  a  national  cult. 

We  are  proud  of  our  Burbanks  and  Eckfords 
and  Bugnots  who  have  done  such  marvelous 
things  with  flowers,  enhancing  their  beauty  a 
hundredfold  and  creating  new  varieties  undream- 
ed of  before;  but  Japan  had  Burbanks  by  the 
dozen  long  before  our  miracle  worker  was  born. 
You  can  read  about  them  in  Eliza  Ruhamah 
Scidmore's  article  on  "The  Wonderful  Morning- 
glories  of  Japan"  in  the  Century  Magazine 
(December,  1897). 

The  asagao  was  brought  to  Japan  with  the 
Buddhist  religion,  to  become  a  sort  of  religious 
rite  in  itself.  In  course  of  time  the  native 
Burbanks  expanded  it  to  several  times  its 
original  size.  At  the  time  of  Commodore  Perry's 
visit,  which  opened  Japan  to  the  world,  princes, 
priests,  nobles,  hatamoto,  and  gardeners  were 
all  engaged  in  a  mad  rivalry  to  improve  the 
morning-glory.  Plants  were  sold  at  fabulous 
prices,  fourteen  and  even  eighteen  dollars  being 
paid  for  a  single  seed.  Then  the  cult  subsided 
for  a  while,  till  twenty  years  ago,  when  it  became 
the  midsummer  craze  of  both  masses  and  classes, 
asagao  clubs  being  formed  in  Tokyo,  Osaka, 
Yokohama,  and  Kyoto. 

When  Burbank  made  "tomatoes"  grow  on 
potato  plants  and  that  sort  of  thing,  he  followed 


•8?  MORNING-GLORIES  221 

Japanese  models.  They  made  morning-glories 
grow  from  grape  and  potato  vines,  from  chry- 
santhemum stalks  and  from  rose  bushes.  They 
changed  the  form  of  the  stems  at  will  and  gave 
them  various  colors.  The  leaves  were  made  to 
mock  those  of  the  maple  and  other  trees.  And 
the  flowers!  There  were  owas  of  three,  five, 
and  even  seven  different  colors,  grown 
on  one  short  vine  of  as  many  branches. 
On  the  fukurlns  such  fantastic  flowers  grew 
"that  one  wonders  how  they  can  be  morning- 
glories  at  all.  They  look  like  double  poppies 
and  pelargoniums;  like  carnations,  honeysuckles, 
thistles,  tuberoses,  gardenias,  chrysanthemums, 
columbines,  upines,  dwarf  peonies,  double  irises, 
butterfly-and-pitcher  plants;  like  orchids;  like 
anything  and  everything  but  a  morning-glory." 
It  is  well  for  us  occasionally  to  look  at  the 
Mikado's  subjects  from  other  than  military  and 
commercial  points  of  view.  In  the  subtle  arts 
of  refined  enjoyment  they  are  centuries  ahead 
of  us. 

15 


CHAPTER    XXIV.       MUST    WE 
RAISE   OUR  OWN   FRUITS,  TOO? 

THE  drys  have  gained  a  great  victory  in 
the  fruit  markets.  I  have  always  been 
very  fond  of  dried  sour  cherries,  but 
until  recently  I  had  difficulty  in  find- 
ing any.      In  1920  the  grocers  had 
barrels  of  them;  samples  were  promi- 
nently exhibited  in  the  windows,  on  which  was 
pasted  the  mysterious  legend,  "Make  Your  Own." 
Why  should  I  make  my  own  dried  cherries 
when  I  can  now  buy  them  everywhere?    Grocers 
are  so  enigmatic! 

We  also  read  of  imported  dried  currants  they 
had  received,  and  of  raisins,  which  suddenly 
came  into  such  surprising  demand  that  the 
California  growers  ceased  advertising  them  and 
clamoring  for  "raisin  weeks."  "Make  your 
own,"  the  grocers  advise  us  when  exhibiting  any 
of  these  dried  fruits.  It  puzzles  me  very  much. 
Why  did  raisins  cost  three  times  as  much  as  they 
had  formerly? 

By  an  absurd  association  of  ideas  which  I 
cannot  account  for,  I  am  wondering  if  this  vic- 
tory of  the  drys  will  pull  us  back  to  the  time 
when  all  fruit  was  grown  and  sold  chiefly  for 
tippling  purposes.  Fruit  growing  in  America,  a 
historian  tells  us, l 


1  See  U.  P.  Hedrick's  huge  but  splendid  book,  The  Peaches  of 
New  York.  Albany,  J.  B.  Lyon  Co.,  1917.  Read  particularly  the 
remarks  on  Elberta  peaches. 


^  RAISE   YOUR  OWN  FRUIT        223 

had  its  beginning,  and  for  two  hundred  years  had  almost 
its  sole  sustenance,  in  the  demand  for  strong  drink.  This 
is  shown  in  almost  every  page  of  the  agricultural  litera- 
ture of  the  times  and  in  the  laws  of  the  Colonies  restrict- 
ing prices  and  levying  taxes  on  liquors  made  from  fruits. 
Peaches  were  grown  in  quantities  wherever  they  could 
be  made  to  succeed  in  the  Colonies,  not  for  the  fruit 
itself,  but  for  the  making  of  peach  vinegar  (a  sort  of 
cider)  and  peach  brandy  (a  distilled  liquor).  And  so 
with  other  fruits. 

TIME  MAY  SWING  BACK 

Will  prohibition  have  the  paradoxical  result 
of  bringing  back  this  situation — of  turning  all 
our  delicious  fruit  into  booze?  It  looks  that 
way.  Grapes  have  been  scarce;  the  why  is 
answered  by  the  presses  for  sale  in  shops  and 
on  the  sidewalks,  and  the  invitation  to  "make 
your  own  grape  juice."  The  California  vine- 
yardists  who  were  in  a  panic  when  prohibition 
suddenly  swooped  down  on  them  now  wear 
smiles  on  their  faces  that  never  come  off.  They 
have  doubled  their  income  and  are  going  to 
erect  a  monument  to  Anderson.  In  a  few  years, 
perhaps,  such  a  thing  as  browsing  in  fruit  marts 
will  be  a  thing  of  the  past.  Therefore,  for  the 
benefit  of  future  historians  of  the  manners  and 
customs  of  Americans  in  the  year  1920  I  submit 
a  few  remarks  on  what  was  to  be  seen  in  our 
markets  and  streets  in  that  year.  For  conven- 
ience I  shall  use  the  present  tense. 

Mediocrity   prevails   in   the   fruit   world   as 


224      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         1? 

everywhere  else.  The  pretty  but  insipid  Ben 
Davis  apple  is  craftily  sold  under  half  a 
dozen  names  all  over  the  United  States.  I 
saw  a  ray  of  hope  last  summer  when  I  read 
a  poster  in  a  village  post  office  in  Maine  offer- 
ing prizes  up  to  two  hundred  dollars  to  farmers 
starting  young  orchards,  any  variety  being 
allowed — "except  Ben  Davis/'  The  Ben  Davis 
has  become  an  outcast  simply  because  it  has  no 
flavor.1 

The  peach  market  also  has  its  Ben  Davis. 
Its  name  is  Elberta.  A  few  dense  fruit-stand 
men  still  have  the  audacity  to  label  their 
peaches  Elbertas,  as  if  that  were  something  to 
boast  of.  Most  of  them,  however,  just  placard 
them  as  "free-stone  peaches."  I  asked  one  of 
them,  "What  are  these?" 

"Peaches,"  he  answered. 

"Yes,  I  know,  but  what  kind  of  peaches?" 

"Free-stone,"  he  answered;  and  that  was 
all  I  could  get  out  of  him  without  subjecting 
him  to  the  third  degree. 

Another  man,  after  a  moment's  hesitation, 
said,  "Elbertas,"  and  when  I  moved  away 
saying  I  didn't  want  any  Elbertas  he  muttered 
an  oath  to  himself.  Perhaps  he  will  realize  some 
day  that  he  would  make  a  great  deal  more 


1  Please  call  your  fruitman's  attention  to  this  eloquent  fact.  For 
many  other  equally  striking  facts  that  will  help  to  convince  him 
see  the  chapter  on  the  "Commercial  Value  of  Flavor"  in  my  book 
Food  and  Flavor  (The  Century  Co.). 


IB  RAISE  YOUR  OWN  FRUIT        225 

money  if  he  bought  and  sold  peaches  that  are 
fit  to  eat.  Only  once  after  returning  from  Maine, 
on  October  17th,  did  I  see  edible  peaches  on  the 
stands.  They  were  Morris  Whites,  and  I  owed 
them  to  an  epicurean  managing  editor  who  told 
me  where  to  go  for  them. 

PEACHES  OF   OTHER   DAYS 

Oh,  for  the  good  old  times  when  the  pushcart 
men  had  the  freedom  of  the  streets  and  offered 
loads  of  deliciously  flavored  and  really  "peachy" 
white  peaches  for  sale  everywhere,  at  two  or 
three  for  a  nickel!  Where  are  the  Crawfords 
and  the  Champions  and  the  Admiral  Deweys 
and  the  Kalamazoo  and  the  other  flavory 
varieties  that  would  delight  our  palates?  Why 
does  not  some  wealthy  gastronome  offer  prizes 
for  peach  orchards  without  Elbertas? 

"I  think  very  few  peach  growers  would  plant 
this  variety  for  their  own  use,"  says  a  writer  in 
the  Country  Gentleman.  Like  those  wooden 
hams  and  nutmegs,  Elbertas  are  "made  to  sell" 
and  the  foolish  public  allows  itself  to  be  "sold," 
by  this  Chinese  apology  for  a  real  peach. 
"Being  large  yellow  peaches,  the  buyers  in 
the  cities  pay  fancy  prices  for  them"  and 
they  have  become  the  leading  commercial  peach 
in  America! 

The  Ben  Davis  among  the  grapes  in  our  mar- 
kets to-day  is  the  Concord,  which  is  sold  in 
huge  quantities,  other  Eastern  grapes  being  a 


226      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *« 

mere  sideshow.1  If  you  get  a  good  basket  of 
Concords  they  are  almost  sure  to  be  some  other 
dark  kind  stupidly  offered  under  that  name.  I 
remember  the  time  when  Concords  seemed 
good  to  eat.  Now  there  is  still  a  sweet  juice 
right  under  the  skin,  but  the  pulp  is  rubbery  and 
sour  as  a  wild  crab  apple.  Epicures  would 
gladly  pay  fancy  prices  for  the  Worden,  a  seed- 
ling of  the  Concord  and  a  great  improvement  on 
it.  It  is  sweet  before  it  becomes  quite  ripe, 
which  is  a  great  advantage  in  these  days  when 
fruit  is  seldom  tree  or  vine  ripened,  as  it  must 
be  to  be  at  its  best.  Other  grapes  of  the  Concord 
type,  but  much  better,  are  Campbell  Early, 
Stark  Eclipse,  and  Moore  Early. 

The  best  Eastern  grapes  to  be  found  in  the 
markets  are  the  Niagaras,  which  when  good  are 
very  good,  and  the  Delawares — "small,  but,  oh 
my!"  They  are  usually  rather  scarce,  and  late 
in  the  autumn  the  fruit  sellers  try  to  make  you 
buy — if  they  think  you  don't  know  much — the 
Catawbas,  which  resemble  them,  but  are  not  so 
luscious.  Of  the  California  grapes  offered,  the 
best  by  far  are  the  Muscatels.  Unfortunately, 
they  do  not  keep  well  and  are  therefore  very 

1  William  Harper  Dean  states,  in  the  Country  Gentleman,  that 
•"in  New  York,  Michigan,  and  Ohio  there  are  some  ninety  thousand 
acres  in  vineyards,  90  per  cent  of  which  are  devoted  to  Concords." 
Speaking  of  the  present  method  of  selling  grapes,  the  manager  of 
one  company  said:  "It  puts  a  premium  on  poor  stuff  and  dis- 
courages the  man  who  spends  time  and  money  to  put  quality  into 
his  product."  That's  why  it  takes  ten  to  twenty  years  to  introduce 
Burbank's  improved  varieties. 


1?  RAISE   YOUR   OWN  FRUIT        227 

expensive.  I  have  paid  three  dollars  for  a  six- 
pound  basket.  They  disappear  early,  but  if 
you  want  to  buy  a  basket  of  Malagas,  which 
resemble  them,  and  call  them  Muscatels,  some 
dealers  will  gladly  accept  a  triple  price  for  them. 
Of  the  California  grapes  on  sale  everywhere,  the 
Cornichons  have  the  richest  flavor.  But  give 
me  Muscatels  for  flavor  every  time — or  Muscats, 
as  many  call  them. 

All  these  solid  California  grapes  are  of  foreign 
origin.  Their  skins  adhere  to  the  pulp.  American 
grapes  have  loose  skins.  All  of  them  are  in  the 
matter  of  flavor  capable  of  great  improvement 
by  future  disciples  of  Burbank. 

Vesey  Street  is  the  best  street  in  New  York 
for  retail  fruit  sampling.  It  leads  on  one  side 
to  Washington  Market  and  on  the  other  to 
Washington  Street,  which  for  a  dozen  or  more 
blocks  northward  is  one  continuous  market  for 
fruits  and  some  vegetables,  many  of  the  side 
streets  also  being  monopolized  by  the  whole- 
salers. Here  you  pass  piles  of  baskets  of  Con- 
cord grapes,  dozens  on  tops  of  one  another; 
ditto  of  oranges  and  grapefruit  from  California, 
Florida,  Porto  Rico;  of  Honeydew  and  Casaba 
melons,  which  would  have  ten  times  their 
present  sale  if  they  were  not  marketed  before 
they  are  ripe;  of  salad  plants;  bags  of  onions 
diffusing  an  atmosphere  which  makes  one  dream 
of  Venice  or  Naples;  of  apples  and  pears;  and 
every  fruit  in  season  that  you  can  think  of. 


228      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

Oranges  and  grapefruit  are  not  at  their  best 
before  Christmas,  and  the  late  Burbank  plums 
are  still  missing  in  our  stupid  markets,  so  the 
outstanding  fruits  in  the  late  autumn  on  Wash- 
ington and  Vesey  Streets  are  apples  and  pears. 
It  is  gratifying  to  note  that  there  is  a  growing 
tendency  to  label  these  two  kinds  of  fruit, 
especially  when  they  come  from  the  far  West. 
Retailers,  of  course,  always  know  what  they 
get  from  the  wholesalers,  but  until  lately  they 
were  not  particularly  anxious  to  pass  on  their 
information  to  the  consumer.  Too  often  the 
consumer's  gastronomic  education  has  been 
neglected;  he  looks  upon  the  apple  when  it  is 
red  and  thinks  one  is  as  good  as  another;  but  it 
isn't,  any  more  than  a  copper  coin  is  as  good  as 
a  dime,  or  a  silver  dollar  as  good  as  a  twenty- 
dollar  gold  piece. 

There  are  quite  as  big  differences  between 
different  kinds  of  apples  and  pears,  and  the 
public  is  gradually  learning  that  fact,  which 
explains  why  Gravenstein,  Red  Astrachan,  Mc- 
Intosh,  Stayman  Winesap,  Jonathan,  Spitzen- 
berg,  and  other  first-class  apples,  and  Bartlett, 
Winternellis,  Bosc,  Anjou,  and  other  good  pears 
are  now  being  labeled  at  some  fruit  stands — 
unfortunately,  not  always  correctly.  Be  on 
your  guard  and  make  your  fruiterer  understand 
distinctly  that  you  want  no  Ben  Davis  apples, 
Elberta  peaches,  or  (genuine)  Concord  grapes. 
If  he  has  any  good  black  grapes,  let  him 


«          RAISE  YOUR  OWN  FRUIT        229 

give  them  their  right  name  and  make   them 
popular. 

Recent  developments  certainly  do  not  allow 
us  to  view  the  fruit  situation  optimistically. 
Things  are  going  from  bad  to  worse.  While 
not  only  Luther  Burbank,  but  the  other  plant 
breeders,  are  using  their  brains  to  produce 
superior  varieties  of  fruit,  the  marketmen, 
wholesale  and  retail,  far  from  encouraging 
them,  eliminate  even  from  the  varieties  now  in 
the  markets  those  that  are  best.  I  foresee  the 
time  when  those  of  us  who  want  to  eat  first- 
class  fruits  will  have  to  raise  them  ourselves, 
like  our  peas  and  beans  and  corn  and  tomatoes. 
When  that  time  comes  (it  isn't  very  far  off) 
those  who  can  afford  it  can  easily  add  a  small 
orchard  to  their  garden.  The  best  varieties  to 
plant  for  epicures — that  is,  for  those  who  know 
good  fruit  from  mediocre  and  bad — are  named 
in  the  orchard  chapter  of  a  book  to  which  I 
have  already  referred  enthusiastically  more 
than  once — E.  P.  Powell's  The  Country  Home. 

THE  BEST  APPLES 

Although  that  book  was  written  two  decades 
ago,  it  is  quite  up-to-date  except  in  a  few 
details.  One  of  these  is  important.  While 
recommending,  among  apples  that  should  grow 
on  every  farm  and  country  place,  Red  Astra- 
chan,  Yellow  Transparent,  Gravenstein,  Mc- 
Intosh,  and  Spitzenberg,  he  has  nothing  to  say 


230      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         «« 

about  Stark's  Delicious,  which  Burbank  has 
pronounced  the  best  of  all  apples  (modestly  for- 
getting his  own  Winterstein,  Goldbridge,  Crim- 
son, improved  Newtown  Pippin)  and  the  won- 
derfully flavored  Stayman  Winesap.  These  are 
recent  additions  to  the  list,  which  Mr.  Powell 
could  not  have  known  of  when  he  wrote  that 
book. 

In  my  opinion,  the  Stayman  Winesap  is  the 
most  flavorful  and,  in  texture  also,  the  most 
agreeable  to  eat  of  all  winter  apples,  as  the  Red 
Astrachan  is  the  finest  summer  apple  and  the 
Gravenstein  the  most  deliciously  fragrant  and 
appetizing  of  fall  apples.  These  three  are  de 
rigueur  in  every  amateur's  orchard.  The 
Gravenstein  is,  especially  when  raised  on  the 
Pacific  coast,  so  fragrant  that  a  basket  of  it 
will  perfume  a  whole  house.  Burbank's  Winter- 
stein  is  an  improved  descendant  of  the  Gra- 
venstein; it  ripens  later  and  thus  prolongs  its 
season  most  agreeably. 

Concerning  the  Stayman  Winesap,  Stark 
Brothers'  (Louisiana,  Missouri)  catalogue  says, 
"The  quality  is  indescribable;  the  flesh  is  juicy 
and  crisp,  with  a  mild  and  pleasing  acidity  and 
a  flavor  that  has  made  it,  in  just  a  few  years, 
one  of  the  most-sought-for  apples,  and  a  general 
favorite  on  all  the  markets."  Some  of  the  Stay- 
mans  weigh  over  a  pound  and  measure  fourteen 
inches  in  circumference,  and  a  single  tree  has 
yielded  twenty-two  barrels  in  one  crop — all  of 


"«  RAISE  YOUR  OWN  FRUIT        231 

which  is  fortunate  for  the  consumer,  because 
they  endear  this  apple  to  the  commercial  grower 
and  the  dealer.  The  originator  of  this  finest 
branch  of  the  great  Winesap  family,  Dr.  J. 
Stayman,  declared  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago, 
"There  will  come  a  time  when  all  will  want  it." 
His  prediction  has  come  true.  If  you  have  been 
buying  ordinary  Winesaps  by  the  dozen,  you 
will  buy  Staymans  by  the  box. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  discredit  the 
Red  Astrachan  as  being  a  tardy  and  shy  bearer, 
and  inferior  to  another  Russian  summer  apple, 
the  Liveland  Raspberry.  I  don't  know  that 
apple,  but  I  doubt  if  it  can  have  a  flavor  so 
unique  and  alluring  as  the  Red  Astrachan.  In 
my  experience  this  has  been  always  the  earliest 
first-class  apple,  and  its  flavor  is  such  that  a 
number  of  other  red  apples  are  smuggled  into 
the  market  under  its  name;  which  makes  it  the 
direct  opposite  of  the  odious  Ben  Davis. 


CHAPTER     XXV.        DO    APPLES 
KEEP  THE   DOCTOR  AWAY? 

WT  was  bound  to  come;  the  worm  has  turned. 

I  A  thousand  times  everybody  has  heard  or 

I   read  that  an  apple  a  day  keeps  the  doctor 

I   away.    Of  course  doctors  don't  want  to  be 

[  kept  away;    wherefore  it  is  surprising  how 

long  they  have  silently  endured  this  thrust 

and  even  encouraged  the  habit  of  eating  apples 

and  other  fruit.     But  there  is  a  limit  to  all 

things.    At  last  a  doctor  has  raised  his  voice  to 

put  a  stop  to  this  nonsense.     William  Henry 

Porter,  M.D.,  has  written  a  book,  Eating  to 

Live  Long,  in  which  he  declares  that  the  eating 

of   fruit,    especially    in    conjunction    with    the 

meals,  as  is  commonly  practiced  in  this  country, 

is  "one  of  the  most  pernicious  and  reprehensible 

of  all  dietetic  follies." 

The  physician's  profession  is  a  paradox.  He 
makes  his  living  by  curing  people  who  are  ill, 
yet  he  is  expected  to  tell  them  how  to  live  so 
as  to  avoid  being  ill.  Can  it  be  that  Doctor 
Porter  has  unveiled  an  atrocious  plot?  Have 
the  other  doctors  conspired  to  encourage  fruit 
eating  because  it  brings  them  patients  afflicted 
with  headache,  neuralgia,  neuritis,  rheumatism, 
sciatica,  lumbago,  skin  eruptions,  diabetes,  and 
Bright's  disease,  all  of  which,  according  to 
Doctor  Porter,  "have  their  origin  in  nothing 
more  or  less  complex  than  the  injudicious  use  of 
fruit  and  fruit  acids"?  Can  it  be  possible  that 


•8  ARE  APPLES  MEDICINE?         233 

the  doctors  have  so  patiently  endured  the  taunt 
about  apples  keeping  them  away  because  they 
knew  that  apples  were  their  best  business 
friends? 

THE   FRUIT   CURE 

Linnaeus,  to  be  sure,  cured  his  gout  by  means 
of  the  "cherry  cure,"  and  thousands  have  been 
restored  to  health  by  means  of  the  "grape 
cure"  popular  in  European  countries  for  genera- 
tions. Many  physicians  employ  the  fruit  cure 
with  excellent  results,  and  at  Battle  Creek  the 
"fruit  regimen' *  is  scientifically  employed  to 
cure  the  very  evils  which  Doctor  Porter  attrib- 
utes to  fruit  eating.  He  declares  that  fruit  acid 
taken  with  other  foods  interferes  with  digestion, 
but  the  world's  leading  authority  on  the  diges- 
tion of  food,  Professor  Pavlov  of  Petrograd,  has 
demonstrated  by  actual  experiments  that  the 
acids  of  fruits  stimulate  the  stomach  to  produce 
gastric  acid  and  that  these  acids  are  able  to  a 
considerable  degree  to  take  the  place  of  the 
natural  acid  of  the  stomach  when  this  is 
absent. 

Dr.  J.  H.  Kellogg  disagrees  with  the  old 
maxim  that  fruit  is  gold  in  the  morning,  silver 
at  noon,  and  lead  at  night;  it  is  "golden  all  the 
time,"  he  declares,  and  no  one  in  this  country  is 
better  posted  than  he  on  what  goes  on  chem- 
ically in  the  alimentary  canal.  "Eat  fruit 
freely  every  day,  before  breakfast  and  before 
dinner,  and  especially  let  your  dietary  include 


234       GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         « 

cherries,  apples,  and  grapes,"  says  a  noted 
French  physician  in  a  treatise  on  longevity. 

Children  do  not  need  to  be  urged  to  eat  fruit 
freely;  they  prefer  it  to  everything  except 
candy,  and  it  is  much  better  for  them  than 
candy.  Adults  too  often  get  out  of  the  habit  of 
eating  fruit  freely;  the  consumption  of  it  ought 
to  be  twenty  times  what  it  is  now,  and  it  would 
be  that  if  lie  best  varieties  only  were  brought 
to  market  and  the  prices  kept  low. 

Of  course,  eating  too  much  fruit  is  bad — as 
bad  as  eating  too  much  of  anything.  Fruit 
should  be  avoided  in  some  diseases,  and  it  does 
not  agree  with  some  healthy  persons.  Yet  there 
is  good  reason  for  believing  that  even  these 
persons  would  find  it  beneficial  if  they  exercised 
care  in  avoiding  the  inferior  and  unripe. 

ANOTHER  BURBANK   TRIUMPH 

Pectic  acid  abounds  in  unripe  fruit,  and  pectic 
acid,  while  necessary  for  jellying,  is  not  desirable 
in  fresh  fruit.  Some  years  ago  a  chemist  wrote 
to  Luther  Burbank: 

I  have  finished  making  an  analysis  of  a  number  of 
your  fruits  and  I  find  that  pectic  acid,  which  is  apt  to 
play  havoc  with  the  human  digestive  tract,  and  which 
accounts  for  the  inability  of  many  people  to  enjoy  raw 
fruit,  is  almost  entirely  absent. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate  the  im- 
portance of  this  discovery. 


«  ARE  APPLES   MEDICINE?         235 

Mr.  Burbank  had  not  consciously  striven  to 
eliminate  the  pectic  acid;  he  had  even  added  it 
freely  in  his  wedding  of  wild  plums  and  apples 
to  some  of  the  cultivated  varieties;  yet  his  prin- 
ciples of  gustatory  selection  brought  into  being, 
after  the  lapse  of  some  years,  reformed  fruits 
fitting  the  finicky  stomachs  which  sedentary 
occupations  are  giving  us. 

Such  improved  fruits  anybody  can  eat  as 
freely  as  our  simian  cousins  eat  the  hundreds  of 
varieties  of  wild  oranges  in  the  Brazilian  forests. 

Among  humans,  oranges  and  apples  have 
been  found  the  best  remedy  for  the  widely 
prevalent  acidosis,  and  it  has  been  scientifically 
demonstrated  that,  next  to  milk,  the  juice  of 
sweet  oranges  is  the  best  food  for  infants  and 
children.  Even  Doctor  Porter  admits  that  fruit 
taken  without  other  food  is  all  right — a  hint  to 
the  many  who  are  at  present  wondering  what 
they  should  buy  for  their  office  lunches.  With  a 
few  nuts  thrown  in,  fruit  makes  a  complete  meal. 


CHAPTER    XXVI.      WHY    NOT 
GROW  PAPAWS,   AMERICA'S 
MOST  DELICIOUS   FRUIT? 

EATEN    by    pigs    and   boys."     I  shall 
never  forget  the  surprise   and  indig- 
nation    with    which    I    read     those 
five    words    in    one    of    Prof.    Asa 
Gray's    textbooks    of    botany,    after 
his    description   of   the    May    apple. 
Although   I   left   Missouri   when   I   was   eight 
years  old,  I  remember  well  how  we  boys  used  to 
get  ahead  of  the  pigs  by  gathering  these  plum- 
shaped  fruits  and  letting  them  ripen  in  the  barn, 
buried   in   hay.      Soon   they   became   luscious 
beyond  compare,  a  feast  for  epicures.    I  made 
up  my  mind,  as  I  have  related  in  Food  and 
Flavor,  that  if  adults  do  not  relish  this  fruit 
they  have  something  to  learn  from  pigs  and 
boys.    What  would  the  French  do  for  truffles  if 
the  pigs  did  not  locate  them  for  them? 

The  American  papaw  (Asimina  triloba)  is 
another  underrated  fruit  the  merits  of  which  my 
fresh  childish  palate  promptly  discovered.  It 
grew  wild  on  bushes  near  my  Missouri  home 
and  I  distinctly  recall  the  thrills  I  got  from  its 
luscious,  quasitropical,  exotic  flavor.  I  also 
remember  how  I  was  annoyed  by  the  huge  seeds, 
which  crowded  out  just  so  much  of  the  sweet 
pulp. 

Then  I  lost  track  of  the  papaw.  Often  I 
wondered  why  none  came  to  market  in  the  cities 


•«  GROW  PAPAWS  237 

of  either  the  Pacific  or  the  Atlantic  coast,  where 
I  lived  for  a  time.  Was  Professor  Bailey  right 
when  he  wrote  that  most  persons  do  not  relish 
its  flavor,  and  doubted  whether  it  would  be  pos- 
sible to  awaken  much  interest  in  this  fruit? 
Was  it  another  case  of  "pigs  and  boys"?  Evi- 
dently! For,  in  an  encyclopaedia  for  young 
people  called  The  American  Educator  I 
found  this,  under  "Papaw":  "It  is  of  no  value 
for  the  table,  but  is  enjoyed  by  birds" 

This  didn't  convince  me  that  I  must  be  a 
bird,  for  I  had  previously  read  in  that  great 
book,  The  Country  Home,  by  the  horticul- 
tural epicure,  E.  P.  Powell,  "I  see  no  reason 
why  this  delicious  fruit,  a  sort  of  hardy  banana, 
should  not  be  grown  everywhere  in  our  gardens." 
And  my  belief  in  my  epicurean  precocity  was 
fully  justified  when  I  found  that  Luther  Burbank 
also  must  be  a  bird,  as  he  enjoys  his  improved 
papaws  more  than  any  other  fruit  in  his  Sebas- 
topol  and  Gold  Ridge  orchards. 

Here  is  what,  in  response  to  my  question,  he 
wrote,  under  date  of  September  11,  1920: 

The  papaw  which  I  am  growing  is  a  hardy  papaw, 
and  will  thrive  in  New  York  State  and  possibly  in  Maine. 
No  one,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  succeeded  in  raising  them 
from  seeds  except  myself.  I  obtained  some  most  delicious 
varieties  of  the  fruit  from  Illinois,  Indiana,  and  Ten- 
nessee, and  have  grown  some  wonderful  seedlings  from 
these,  the  fruit  in  flavor  being  much  superior  to  the 
tropical  "papaw,"  which  is  a  totally  distinct  species, 
ours  being  the  Asimina  trilobu.  It  is  a  common  saying 
if 


238      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

that  "the  only  way  to  make  a  papaw  live  is  to  try  to 
kill  it,"  as  it  is  very  hard  to  kill  when  once  it  gets  fairly 
started.  The  flavor  of  the  best  varieties,  in  my  opinion, 
is  superior  to  that  of  any  other  fruit,  and  as  they  can 
be  still  further  improved,  the  papaw  will  soon  become 
a  grand  standard  fruit  in  America,  and  will  be  culti- 
vated like  other  fruits. 

After  reading  this  letter  I  made  up  my  mind 
to  become  a  missionary  and  preach  the  gospel 
of  the  American  papaw.  Hence  this  sermon. 

STRANGE   HABITS   OF   A   QUEER   PLANT 

Can  the  American  papaw  be  successfully 
grown  in  all  our  Northern  states?  That  was  the 
first  question  presenting  itself.  Mr.  Powell 
says,  "It  will  grow  anywhere  in  our  gardens, 
but  it  likes  water,  and  if  the  season  is  dry  the 
fruit  will  either  drop  or  be  flavorless,  unless  the 
trees  are  abundantly  irrigated."  On  another 
page  he  says:  "The  papaw  is  as  beautiful  for 
the  shrubbery  as  it  is  excellent  for  fruit.  It 
likes  moist  soil,  but  can  be  grown  on  high  soil 
by  mulching." 

My  next  step  was  to  find  out  what  the  govern- 
ment experts  had  to  say.  In  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion addressed  to  the  Bureau  of  Plant  Industry 
in  Washington,  the  pomologist,  C.  P.  Close, 
wrote  me  the  following  letter,  dated  July  13, 
1921: 

The  American,  or  native,  papaw  (Asimina  triloba) 
is  entirely  distinct  from  the  tropical  fruit  called  papaya, 


°$  GROW  PAPAWS  239 

or  tree  papaw  (Carica  papaya}.    This  last-named  fruit 
is  being  grown  in  Florida  and  California. 

The  American  papaw  is  native  to  probably  all  of  the 
states  east  of  the  Mississippi  River,  except,  perhaps, 
Wisconsin,  and  it  is  also  found  in  the  Middle  Western 
states  as  far  west  as  Kansas.  The  only  attempt  to 
propagate  and  improve  papaw  so  far  as  I  know  has  been 
made  in  Indiana.  Several  very  fine  papaws  have  been 
found  in  southern  Indiana,  and  one  of  these  was  named 
a  few  years  ago,  but  I  think  was  never  propagated  by 
budding  or  grafting.  I  obtained  seeds  several  years 
ago  from  southern  Indiana,  and  grew  a  number  of 
plants  from  them.  When  these  plants  fruited  they 
produced  rather  small  and  inferior  fruits.  I  have  seen 
papaw  trees  in  southern  Indiana  growing  in  back  yards 
and  producing  fruits  of  very  fine  quality.  There  has 
been  no  systematic  attempt  to  improve  this  fruit.  A 
great  difficulty  is  that  the  seeds  are  so  large.  If  we  could 
find  fruits  with  small  seeds  it  would  certainly  be  worth 
while  propagating.  The  best  papaw  that  I  ever  sampled 
grew  in  western  Maryland.  This  fruit  does  not  have  the 
digestive  power  which  is  attributed  to  the  leaves  of  the 
tropical  papaya. 

THINKING   IT  OVER   SIX   MONTHS 

Knowing  what  the  writer  of  this  letter  evi- 
dently did  not  know,  that  a  systematic  attempt 
to  improve  the  American  papaw  has  been  made 
by  Luther  Burbank,  I  wrote  to  him  for  further 
information.  Under  date  of  July  12,  1921,  he 
replied: 

The  papaw  has  always  been  taken  as  a  matter  of 
course,  apparently,  by  Americans.  It  is  really  the  most 
unique  fruit  that  America  has  ever  produced,  and  seems 
to  be  one  of  nature's  partial  misfits  in  some  respects, 


240      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         % 

as  the  seed  is  apparently  not  suited  to  grow  well  under 
any  conditions.  The  seeds  are  very  much  larger  than 
they  need  to  be  under  any  circumstances;  it  is  very 
difficult  to  transplant  one  of  them  after  the  first  season's 
growth,  and  is  about,  if  not  quite,  the  most  difficult  seed 
to  germinate  among  the  hundreds  of  thousands  which  I 
have  tested,  yet  I  have  succeeded  in  producing  about  a 
thousand  plants  this  year  from  my  own  selected  seed. 

The  papaw  is  a  very  different  plant  from  the  tropical 
papaya;  superior  to  it  in  flavor,  in  my  opinion,  but  of 
course  smaller  and  seedy  compared  with  it.  I  think 
the  hardier  Northern  varieties  will  grow  in  all  the  states 
of  the  Union,  as  it  thrives  in  Illinois  and  my  original 
stock  came  from  that  state  mostly. 

My  method  of  germinating  the  seeds  is  to  plant  them 
in  a  mixture  of  turf  and  sand  in  the  greenhouse  in  well- 
drained  boxes,  where,  after  six  months  of  thinking  it 
over,  they  begin  to  sprout.  These  are  then  transplanted 
to  shaded  beds  outside,  where  they  are  grown  for  one 
year  and  then  are  sold  for  transplanting. 

We  send  you  our  latest  catalogue  describing  the 
papaw  somewhat.  Perhaps  you  may  not  have  received 
it,  as  we  do  not  solicit  Eastern  orders  for  plants,  as  our 
season  makes  it  very  difficult  to  hold  the  plants  until 
spring  opens. 

In  this  catalogue  I  found  a  picture  of  six 
egg-shaped  large  papaws  on  a  tray  and  this 
information: 

One  of  the  most  difficult  of  all  trees  to  raise  from  the 
seed  and  not  offered  elsewhere.  The  fruit  is  the  size 
and  form  of  a  small  banana  and  excels  in  flavor  any 
known  fruit  which  can  be  raised  in  temperate  climates. 
I  have  never  so  far  been  able  to  raise  enough  trees  to 
go  around.  The  young  trees  grow  very  readily  when  of 
the  small  size  which  I  offer. 


^  GROW  PAPAWS  241 

No  doubt  the  papaw's  habit — as  Mr.  Burbank 
humorously  puts  it — of  "thinking  it  over"  six 
months  in  the  greenhouse  before  it  begins  to 
sprout  has  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  neglect  of 
this  grand  fruit.  Now  that  he  has  shown  how 
to  overcome  its  apparent  objection  to  being 
born,  others  can  follow  his  example;  and  as  his 
plants  are  not  available  in  the  Eastern  states,  I 
hope  that  some  of  our  enterprising  and  ambitious 
greenhouse  men  will  adopt  the  papaw  and  push 
it  into  the  popularity  which  it  deserves.  The 
more  of  them  who  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  this 
great  gardener  in  doing  in  ten  years  of  selection 
and  hybridizing  what  nature  might  (or  might 
not)  have  achieved  in  a  thousand  years,  the 
better  for  everybody  from  the  business  point  of 
view  as  well  as  the  epicurean  or  gastronomic. 

One  of  the  questions  I  asked  the  U.  S.  Bureau 
of  Plant  Industry  was  whether  the  American 
papaw  is  at  all  like  the  tropical  papaya  in  having 
in  the  juice  of  its  fruit  or  in  its  leaves  the  chem- 
ical papain  to  which  such  wonderful  digestive 
powers  are  attributed.  Mr.  Close  answered  this 
question  in  the  negative.  To  get  further  expert 
testimony  on  this  point  I  wrote  to  the  great 
Battle  Creek  dietician,  Dr.  J.  H.  Kellogg;  his 
answer  was: 

I  have  not  forgotten  to  mention  the  American  papaw 
in  my  new  food  book  now  in  the  press.  I  notice  the 
Agricultural  Department  spells  the  name  of  the  American 
fruit  with  one  "w,"  papaw,  while  the  tropical  fruit  is 


242       GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         ^ 

spelled  with  two  "w's,"  pawpaw.  It  is  the  tropical 
fruit  that  has  the  digestive  ferments  in  it;  at  least  I 
have  never  heard  that  our  Northern  fruit  has  any  diges- 
tive properties.  I  am  not  sure,  however,  that  this  sub- 
ject has  been  scientifically  studied.  I  will  perhaps  get 
a  chance  to  investigate  the  matter  this  year.  The  papaw 
grows  in  Michigan  quite  abundantly  in  certain  regions. 
We  have  a  town  a  few  miles  west  of  Kalamazoo  named 
Paw  Paw  because  of  the  abundance  of  this  fruit  in  that 
vicinity.  No  attention  has  been  given  to  it,  however, 
and  it  seems  to  be  running  out.  Some  attempt  has 
been  made  to  improve  the  fruit,  with  more  or  less  suc- 
cess. It  is  an  excellent  fruit,  almost  the  only  fruit  we 
have  which  has  a  real  tropical  flavor.  The  mandrake, 
or  May  apple,  is  the  only  other  one.  Both  are  good 
fruits  and  I  think  ought  to  be  improved  by  culture.  I 
believe  they  would  be  invaluable  additions  to  our  too 
limited  list  of  fruits. 


THE  TROPICAL  PAPAYA 

The  tropical  papaya,  which  does  contain  the 
remarkably  digestive  papain  (destined  to  super- 
sede the  ubiquitous  soda  mints),  is  not  alto- 
gether un-American,  since  it  grows  in  at  least 
two  of  our  states  (Florida  and  California),  while 
on  our  Hawaiian  Islands  it  furnishes  more 
enjoyment  than  any  fruit  except  the  banana. 
The  natives  revel  in  its  luscious  flavor;  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  the  reason  why  the 
Hawaiians  are  usually  represented  as  persist- 
ently cheerful  and  bubbling  over  with  merri- 
ment is  because  the  juice  of  the  papaya,  con- 
taining as  it  does  papain  in  all  its  parts  and 


*i?  GROW  PAPAWS  243 

particularly  in  its  fruit  (see  the  U.  S.  Dispen- 
satory) banishes  dyspepsia,  the  chief  source  of 
ill  health  and  melancholy. 

Mrs.  Jack  London  says  in  Our  Hawaii: 
"Jack  is  wild  about  this  fruit,  and  has  it  for 
every  breakfast" — so  it  is  not  the  natives  alone 
who  relish  it.  Let  us  by  all  means  have  in  our 
markets  the  papaya  in  addition  to  the  papaw. 
It  is  a  native  of  Mexico,  belongs  to  the  passion- 
flower family,  and  is  highly  ornamental  as  well 
as  useful.  "For  sheer  beauty,  in  an  artificial 
sense,  it  is  the  most  remarkable  tree  we  have 
ever  seen,"  wrote  Mrs.  London,  and  she  and 
Jack  were  great  travelers. 

David  Fairchild,  our  government's  explorer  in 
charge  of  Foreign  Seed  and  Plant  Introduction, 
is  so  much  interested  in  the  papaya  that  he  has 
issued  a  special  pamphlet  on  it  (to  be  had  from 
the  Superintendent  of  Documents  in  Washing- 
ton), which  will  serve  as  a  guide  to  those  who 
may  wish  to  grow  papayas  as  well  as  papaws. 


CHAPTER  XXVII.   THE  RETIRED 
RICH  NEED  NOT   DIE 

IN  France  and  Germany  it  was  customary, 
before  the  war,  for  a  man  who  had  "made 
his  pile"  to  become  a  rentier — that  is,  one 
who  has  retired  from  his  office  or  professional 
work  and  just  vegetates,  enjoying  the  rest 
of  his  life  in  the  pursuit  of  health,  happiness, 
and  some  pet  hobby.    During  my  travels  abroad 
I    often    came    across    men   who   had   written 
"rentier"  after  their  names  in  the  Swiss  and 
Italian  hotel  registers,  and  often  I  was  surprised 
to  see  how  young  some  of  them  were.     Asked 
about  this,  one  of  them  answered  frankly  that 
he  saw  no  reason  for  remaining  in  the  treadmill 
when  his  income  allowed  him  to  roam  the  world 
unfettered.     "Besides,"  he  added,  "I  wanted  to 
give  some  one  else  a  chance." 

In  America  there  are  no  idle  rich.  Every 
merchant,  banker,  doctor,  lawyer,  works  like  a 
steam  engine  pulling  a  freight  train  up  the 
Rocky  Mountains  till  his  doctor  cries  his  warn- 
ing, "Stop  or  die."  But,  alas!  When  any  of 
these  men  do  retire,  not  having  anything  to 
occupy  their  minds,  they  are  tormented  by 
boredom,  all  their  faculties  become  rusty,  and  in 
a  year  or  two  they  die  anyway.  That  is  what 
we  read  every  other  day  in  medical  and  other 
newspapers.  When  rich  men  retire  because  of 
advancing  age,  we  are  assured,  it  is  too  late  for 


"i?  PASTIME   FOR  THE   RICH         245 

them  to  cultivate  a  taste  for  some  easier,  life- 
saving  activity. 

But  there  is  one  occupation  which  it  is  never 
too  late  to  seek  refuge  in. 

Gardening  is  certainly  the  next  amusement  to  read- 
ing, and,  as  my  sight  will  permit  me  little  of  that,  I  am 
glad  to  form  a  taste  that  can  give  me  so  much  enjoy- 
ment and  be  the  plaything  of  my  age,  now  my  pen 
and  needle  are  almost  useless  to  me.  I  am  really  as 
fond  of  my  garden  as  a  young  author  of  his  first  play 
when  it  has  been  well  received  by  the  town. 

So  wrote  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  to 
the  Countess  of  Bute,  to  whom  she  eloquently 
describes  her  walks  garnished  with  beds  of 
flowers,  her  wild  vines  twisting  to  the  tops  of 
the  highest  trees,  her  little  wood  carpeted  with 
violets  and  strawberries  and  inhabited  by  a 
nation  of  nightingales  and  game  of  all  kinds. 

HAVE  A  LITTLE  GARDEN   IN  YOUR  HOME 

Men  and  women  of  America,  if  you  wish  to 
live  long  and  be  healthy  and  happy,  follow  the 
example  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  and 
make  a  garden  the  plaything  of  your  advancing 
age.  You  will  soon  learn  to  enjoy  it  as  a  child 
enjoys  its  new  toys;  your  boredom  will  vanish; 
life  in  the  open  will  paint  your  cheeks  red,  give 
you  a  good  appetite,  and  once  more  open  your 
clogged  senses  to  the  beauties  and  enchantments 
of  nature  which  you  knew  as  a  child,  but  had 
forgotten  during  the  years  when  you  were 


246      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

shoveling  superfluous  dollars  into  your  vaults. 
Start  a  garden  next  spring  and  in  a  few  weeks  I 
guarantee  you  will  have  an  interest  in  it  which 
soon  will  develop  into  a  mania — a  passion  that 
will  keep  you  alive,  busy,  absorbed,  enchanted. 
It  will  add  twenty  years  to  your  life. 

To  get  a  foretaste  of  the  joys  awaiting  you 
next  summer,  go  into  some  well-kept  garden, 
see  the  autumn  flowers,  the  dahlias,  asters, 
hydrangeas,  cosmoses,  phloxes,  gladioli,  pan- 
sies,  and  many  others,  and  then  pass  on  to  the 
rows  of  full-headed  cabbage  and  salad  plants, 
the  salsify — safe  substitute  for  the  sewage- 
soaked  oysters — the  late  carrots,  beets,  peas,  the 
scarlet  runner  and  other  pole  beans,  and,  above 
all,  the  corn  and  the  pumpkins.  I  love  to  hide 
in  a  corn  field,  watch  the  broad,  long  leaves 
waving  in  the  wind,  and  listen  to  their  music. 
John  Muir,  in  his  great  book  on  the  mountains 
of  California,  dwells  on  a  fact  known  only  to 
those  whose  senses  have  been  trained — that  the 
leaves  of  different  trees  sound  a  music  of  their 
own  as  recognizable  as  the  calls  and  songs  of 
various  birds. 

The  cornstalk,  too,  has  its  own  call  to  the 
music  lover.  The  pumpkin  leaves  are  mute; 
but  the  pumpkins  themselves — how  picturesque 
they  look  between  the  cornstalks — green,  yellow, 
orange,  white — big  and  doubling  in  size  every 
few  days.  And  when  I  think  of  pumpkin  pie — 
genuine,  home-made,  I  mean,  not  the  kind  you 


*«  PASTIME  FOR  THE   RICH         247 

get  in  most  restaurants — I — well,  some  feelings 
are  too  deep  and  complex  for  expression  in 
words. 

A   SPORTING  PROPOSITION 

Let  me  say  right  here  that  if  the  retiring  rich 
man,  for  whose  special  benefit  I  am  writing 
this  chapter,  is  interested  in  sports,  he  need  not 
swear  off  when  he  becomes  an  amateur  gar- 
dener. His  professional  assistant  will  tell  him 
how  he  can  raise  mammoth  pumpkins  weighing 
up  to  a  hundred  and  even  two  hundred  pounds. 
He  can  try  to  make  a  new  record  in  size  and 
weight,  beating  all  his  neighbors  and  predeces- 
sors. Why  isn't  that  just  as  satisfying  as  a  new 
record  in  boat  or  horse  racing? 

The  spirit  of  racing  or  emulation  can  be 
applied  in  a  hundred  ways  in  the  garden,  as  I 
hinted  and  briefly  illustrated  in  the  chapter  "A 
New  Time-table  for  Vegetables."  If  you  will 
read  the  books  of  Luther  Burbank  the  gardening 
of  the  future  will  seem  a  wild  dream  of  impos- 
sible possibilities. 

You,  the  retiring  rich  man,  are  in  a  position 
also  to  contribute  to  the  satisfaction  of  living 
things  that  are  beyond  all  price.  You  can  have 
a  use  for  your  wealth  which  will  make  your  name 
memorable  in  the  gardens  and  the  parlors  and 
dining  rooms  of  the  world.  There  is  usually  no 
money  in  this  sort  of  thing.  Speaking  of  Calvin 
N.  Keeney,  who  originated  the  stringless  beans, 
Professor  Bailey  says,  "The  making  of  new 


248      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

kinds  of  beans  pays  only  in  the  intellectual 
satisfaction  of  it  and  in  the  general  standing 
that  it  gives  the  business."  This  is  true  of  plant 
breeding  in  general,  and  that  is  why  so  little  of 
it  is  done.  As  soon  as  the  first  of  the  new  seeds 
are  sold,  anyone  can  raise  and  sell  them;  there 
is  no  patent  or  copyright  and  royalty.  For  this 
very  reason  such  achievements  as  putting  new 
colors  or  perfumes  or  details  of  shape  into 
flowers  and  making  vegetables  earlier,  bigger, 
and  better  flavored  are  peculiarly  for  wealthy 
persons  who  are  ready  to  sell  out  and  devote  the 
rest  of  their  lives  to  nobler  tasks  than  money 
making.  A  single  creation  along  this  line  may 
make  you  immortal.  The  joys  of  creative  gar- 
dening certainly  are  as  intense  as  those  of 
authorship.  Think  of  seeing  on  your  grounds 
flowers  that  no  one  has  ever  seen;  of  tasting 
fruits  or  vegetables  that  no  one  ever  enjoyed 
before!  Is  there  anything  else  that  brings  us  so 
near  the  Creator? 

HEALTHY   PLANTS   RADIATE   HAPPINESS 

Even  if  you  do  not  care  to  undertake  such  a 
task  there  are  a  thousand  other  delights  of 
gardening  awaiting  you.  Nor  need  this  be 
purely  a  selfish  indulgence.  You  can  raise  more 
flowers  and  tender  vegetables  than  you  need  and 
send  them  daily  to  the  hospitals,  where  your 
name  will  be  blessed  hourly.  That  will  magnify 
your  own  pleasures  just  as  a  microscope  en- 


*8?  PASTIME  FOR  THE   RICH        249 

larges  what  you  see.  And  your  own  eyes  will 
become  as  microscopes;  you  will  see  as  an 
artist  sees,  especially  if  you  will  rise  early  (five 
is  not  too  early)  to  see  the  glories  of  the  sunrise 
and  clouds  and  listen  to  the  glad  song  of  the 
birds.  Your  plants  at  that  hour  look  refreshed 
by  sleep  and  dew;  they  radiate  happiness  which 
you  will  find  contagious. 

Before  breakfast  is  the  best  time,  too,  to 
work  in  the  garden.  In  midsummer  my  day's 
work  in  the  sunshine  ends  at  8  A.M. 

I  make  up  for  early  rising  by  taking  a  half- 
hour  Spanish  siesta  in  the  afternoon — a  most 
refreshing  custom.  This  half  hour  seems  to 
equal  two  hours  of  night  sleep.  Why?  I  don't 
know.  Of  course,  if  you  are  not  strong  you  must 
let  your  helpers  do  all  the  spading  and  hoeing, 
but  surprisingly  soon  you  will  find  yourself 
able  to  do  some  of  the  harder  work,  too.  My 
little  nephew  and  I  (he  is  just  sixty  years 
younger  than  I  am)  do  much  of  the  potato 
digging.  It's  as  good  fun  as  fishing.  You  never 
know  what's  going  to  be  at  the  other  end  of  the 
vine  you  pull  out. 

Above  all  things,  engage  a  head  gardener  who 
realizes  that  "the  flower's  the  thing."  Land- 
scape gardening  and  drives  and  pergolas  and 
shaded  walks  and  summerhouses  are  all  very 
fine  things,  but  they  will  not  give  you  the  full 
benefits  promised  in  this  chapter  through  spend- 
ing your  days  with  the  flowers  and  vegetables. 


250      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         Tg 

Wealthy  families  that  have  the  landscape  gar- 
dens without  the  flowers  to  cultivate  personally 
are,  in  the  words  of  Mrs.  Theodore  Thomas, 
"like  those  other  unfortunates  who  occupy  the 
opera  box  night  after  night  without  any  knowl- 
edge or  appreciation  of  music." 

But  a  garden,  you  might  say,  is  good  only 
half  a  year.  What  are  the  retired  rich  to  do  the 
other  six  months?  Go  to  California  or  Florida 
and  have  a  winter  garden!  That's  infinitely 
more  conducive  to  longevity  than  rocking  all 
day  on  a  hotel  piazza,  bored  to  death. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII.    THE  JOYS  OF 
CREATIVE  GARDENING 

PERHAPS  it  is  a  mistake  to  discourse 
in    one    brief    volume    on    supergar- 
dening,    as  well   as   on   ordinary  gar- 
dening, but  the  conditions  described 
in    Chapters    XXIV-XXVI    are    so 
discouraging     that     I     cannot     resist 
the  temptation  to  add  a  few  pages  for  the  pur- 
pose of  encouraging  the  retired  rich  (as  well  as 
others  who  want  a  life-prolonging  hobby   and 
have  money  enough  to  engage  in  creative  gar- 
dening) to  become  amateur  Burbanks,  for  the 
purpose  of  thwarting  the   vegetable   and   fruit 
men  who  are  doing  their  best  to  eliminate  va- 
riety and  flavor,  two  things  that  make  eating 
a  source  of  health  as  well  as  of  pleasure. 

I  have  already  intimated  that  the  producing 
of  new  kinds  of  plants  brings  a  man  nearer  the 
Creator  than  anything  he  can  do;  and  the  joy 
of  creating  is  beyond  all  other  pleasures.  On 
page  1811  gave  a  glimpse  of  the  happiness  that 
comes  to  Luther  Burbank  from  seeing  his  new 
ornamental  or  useful  plants  that  human  eyes 
had  never  before  beheld.  The  following  final 
pages  of  this  book  are  intended  to  urge  on  others 
to  share  these  pleasures  of  creating,  by  giving 
glimpses  of  the  great  plant  breeder  in  his  magic 
gardens,  besides  quoting  some  of  his  hints  to 
those  who  may  wish  to  follow  in  his  footsteps. 
"The  amateur  who  enters  this  fascinating  field 


252       GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *«? 

will  do  well,"  Burbank  counsels,  "to  begin  with 
simple  cases,  paying  heed  to  a  single  quality  of 
any  flower  or  fruit  with  which  he  experiments; 
endeavoring  to  advance  along  one  line  till  he 
gains  skill  enough  through  practice  to  attempt 
more  complex  experiments. 

"Let  him,  for  example,  increase  the  perfume 
of  some  familiar  garden  plant  or  develop  a  race 
having  large  blossoms  or  one  having  peculiar 
brilliancy  of  color."  One  does  not  need  to  be 
rich  to  enjoy  this  kind  of  fun.  An  ordinary 
garden  suffices. 

"Any  flower  bed  will  show  him,"  Burbank 
continues,  "among  different  specimens  of  the 
same  species,  enough  of  variation  to  furnish 
material  for  his  first  selection.  And  he  is  almost 
sure  to  find  encouragement  through  discovery, 
among  the  plants  grown  from  this  seed,  of  some 
that  will  show  the  particular  quality  he  has  in 
mind  in  a  more  pronounced  degree  than  did  the 
parent  plant. 

"So  here  he  will  have  material  for  further 
selection,  and  step  by  step  he  can  progress  in 
successive  seasons,  often  more  rapidly  than  he 
had  dared  to  hope,  toward  the  production  of  the 
new  variety  at  which  he  aims." 

Here  is  another  interesting  hint.  You  can 
enjoy  the  pleasures  of  supergardening  by  putting 
alluring  paint  on  pears.  Hear  the  master: 
"Unlike  most  other  fruits,  this  one,  as  everyone 
knows,  is  for  the  most  part  lacking  in  the 


«»  PASTIME  FOR  THE  RICH        253 

brilliant  color  that  purchasers  of  fruit  in  the 
market  usually  find  so  attractive.  But  there  is 
no  reason  why  pears  of  various  brilliant  and 
attractive  colors  should  not  be  developed  just 
as  colored  apples  have  been." 

In  this  sort  of  thing  gardening  with  brains 
reaches  its  climax.  And  it  gives  you  a  chance 
to  become  famous. 

"When  you  work  with  fruit  trees  you  are 
making  permanent  records,  reaching  out  your 
hand  to  future  generations — erecting  a  monu- 
ment that  will  remain  long  after  you  are  gone." 

The  following  four  classes  of  plant  improve- 
ments are  suggested  by  the  master  gardener  at 
Santa  Rosa: 

First,  improving  the  quality  of  the  product  of 
existing  plants. 

Second,  saving  plants  from  their  own  extrava- 
gance, thereby  increasing  their  yield. 

Third,  fitting  plants  more  closely  to  conditions 
of  soil,  climate,  and  locality. 

And  fourth,  transforming  wild  plants  and  mak- 
ing entirely  new  ones  to  take  care  of  new  wants, 
which  are  growing  with  surprising  rapidity. 

BEGGING   FOR   IMMEDIATE   IMPROVEMENT 

Along  these  lines  supergardeners  can  find  an 
endless  variety  of  tasks  to  solve  and  endless 
joy  in  solving  them. 

Some  plants,  Burbank  declares,  are  "begging 
for  immediate  improvement."  Others  have 


254      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         « 

already  been  vastly  improved.  Grapes,  for 
example.  "The  grapes  of  our  childhood  grew 
sparsely  on  climbing  vines  which  covered  our 
arbors;  while  the  grapes  grown  for  profit 
to-day  grow  thickly,  almost  solidly,  on  stubby 
plants  three  feet  or  so  in  height.  The  value  of 
the  grape  plant  lies  in  the  fruit  and  not  in  the 
vine." 

Yet  all  the  grapes  except  the  Muscatel  (or 
Muscat)  call  loudly  for  further  improvement, 
especially  in  the  matter  of  rich  flavor.  And  the 
Muscatels  need  something,  too — a  thicker  or 
tougher  skin  (we  needn't  eat  it)  to  make  them 
ship  better.  Give  them  such  a  skin — it  can 
easily  be  done  along  Burbankian  lines — and 
more  of  these  deliciously  flavored  grapes  will 
be  sold  in  Eastern  markets  than  of  all  other 
California  grapes  combined. 

Seedless  grapes  are  not  among  Burbank's 
achievements;  they  have  been  raised  for  more 
than  a  century.  He  is  convinced,  however,  that 
these  very  small  grapes  can  be  doubled  in  size 
and  improved  in  flavor  by  a  certain  cross 
suggested  by  him. 

"Seedless  raspberries,  blackberries,  gooseber- 
ries, currants,  with  the  energy  saved  reinvested 
in  added  size  or  better  flavor,  call  for  some  one 
to  bring  them  about. 

"Seedless  figs,  even,  might  be  made,  but 
these  could  be  counted  no  improvement;  for 
the  seeds  of  the  fig  give  the  fruit  its  flavor." 


*$  PASTIME   FOR   THE   RICH         255 

Concerning  orchard  improvement  Burbank 
says :  "The  fruit  trees  of  our  fathers  and  mothers 
were  shade  trees  in  size,  with  all  too  little  fruit. 
The  ideal  orchard  of  to-day,  generally  speaking, 
is  the  one  which  can  be  picked  without  the  use 
of  a  stepladder.  Thus,  already  we  have  taught 
fruit-bearing  plants  economy — saved  them  the 
extravagance  of  making  unnecessary  wood  at 
the  expense  of  fruit,  since  it  is  their  fruit,  not 
their  wood,  that  we  want.  .  .  .  Skyscrapers  in 
the  orchard  do  not  pay. 

"In  the  case  of  the  prune,  in  particular,  a 
low-branching  tree  is  especially  to  be  desired, 
that  the  prunes  may  not  be  bruised  in  falling, 
for  even  as  tough  a  fruit  as  the  prune  may  be 
injured  in  falling  from  a  tree. 

"The  s toneless  plum  points  the  way  to  a  new 
world  of  fruits  in  which  the  stony  or  shell -like 
covering  of  the  seeds  has  been  bred  away.  .  .  . 
The  coreless  apple,  pear,  and  quince,  with 
sheathless  seeds  growing  compactly  near  the 
top,  out  of  the  way — these  are  all  within  the 
range  of  accomplishment." 

HOW  WE   IMPROVE  ON   NATURE 

Again  and  again  Burbank  emphasizes  in  his 
writings  the  fact  that  there  are  no  secrets  about 
his  method  of  improving  plants  or  creating  new 
kinds,  and  that  he  is  simply  accelerating  the 
processes  of  nature  as  revealed  by  Darwin.  Na- 
ture is  too  slow  and  does  not  always  work  for  the 


256      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS        ^ 

things  we  want  most;  hence  the  need  of  plant 
breeders,  of  systematic  supergardening  with 
brains.  The  following  paragraph  is  illuminat- 
ing: 

"Nature  has  been  carrying  on  selective  world- 
wide breeding  of  plants  and  animals  on  a  con- 
stantly widening  scale  for  millions  of  years; 
butjiature  does  not  care  for  sweet  corn,  melons, 
Bartlett  pears;  luscious,  juicy,  fragrant  peaches; 
large,  early,  sweet  cherries;  thin-skinned,  seed- 
less, juicy  oranges ;  large  grapes  of  many  seasons, 
colors,  and  flavors;  pineapples  with  their  de- 
lightful aroma;  prunes  with  sugar  content 
sufficient  to  preserve  them  while  drying;  large, 
crisp  cabbages;  head  lettuce;  'Quality'  aspara- 
gus; self-blanching  celery;  double  roses;  vari- 
colored carnations;  cactus  dahlias  or  wonder- 
fully colored  gladioli;  cannas  and  lilacs  with 
new  perfumes  and  a  beautiful  range  of  splendid 
color  effects;  or  the  farmers'  crops  of  varied 
grains,  and  potatoes  which  now  are,  in  most 
cases,  at  least,  a  hundred  times  as  productive 
and  of  almost  infinitely  improved  qualities. 

"But  man  has,  at  first  unconsciously  and 
later  consciously,  produced  all  these  marvelous 
improvements  in  everything,  plant  and  animal, 
which  is  useful  to  him;  not  by  nature's  method 
of  selective  breeding  for  the  continuance  of  life 
at  any  cost,  but  for  definite  purpose  to  supply 
the  world  with  food,  clothing,  shelter,  and 
luxuries."  Read  the  chapter  on  "Planning  a 


•8?  PASTIME   FOR  THE  RICH        257 

New  Plant"  in  Vol.  II  of  the  new  Collier  edition 
of  his  collected  writings. 

"I  have  been,"  he  says  on  another  page, 
"imbued  from  the  very  outset  with  the  idea  that 
inasmuch  as  existing  plants  have  all  evolved 
from  inferior  types,  it  should  be  possible  to 
develop  any  or  all  of  them  still  further." 

And  here  is  a  trumpet  call  which  ought  to 
inspire  and  enthuse  all  those  who  may  have  a 
desire  to  do  a  little  plant  improving  on  their 
own  account:  "Who  can  predict  the  result 
when  the  inventive  genius  of  young  Amer- 
ica is  turned  toward  this,  the  greatest  of 
all  fields  of  invention,  as  it  is  now  turned 
toward  mechanics  and  electricity?" 

THE   ENEMIES   OF   GREAT    MEN 

All  the  quotations  in  the  foregoing  pages 
from  Burbank's  writings  are  made  from  the 
third,  or  1915,  edition  in  twelve  large  volumes, 
an  edition  de  luxe  in  every  way,  but  rather 
"long-winded,"  as  he  himself  calls  it  in  a  letter 
to  me.  Few  persons  in  our  busy  age  have  time 
to  read  and  assimilate  so  many  pages  on  any 
one  topic. 

As  I  am  writing  this  chapter,  there  comes  to 
me  a  set  of  the  new  Collier  edition,  in  which  the 
twelve  volumes  are  cleverly  condensed  to  eight; 
the  material  is  also  arranged  in  a  more  practical 
way,  and  all  information  brought  up  to  date. 
The  titles  of  the  new  volumes  are:  I,  Plant 


258      GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         •$ 

Breeding;  II,  Grafting  and  Budding;  III, 
Fruit  Improvement;  IV,  Small  Fruits;  V, 
Gardening;  VI,  Useful  Plants;  VII,  Flowers; 
VIII,  Trees,  Biography,  Index. 

There  are  hundreds  of  useful  colored  pictures, 
with  strikingly  illuminating  comments.  Ama- 
teur plant  improvers  will  eagerly  read  such 
chapters  as  "The  Rivalry  of  Plants  to  Please 
Us,"  "Some  Interesting  Failures,"  "Letting  the 
Bees  Do  Their  Work,"  "A  Rich  Field  for  Work 
in  the  Textile  Plants,"  "Useful  Plants  Which 
Repay  Experiment,"  "What  to  Work  for  in 
Flowers,"  "Producing  an  Entirely  New  Color," 
"Growing  Trees  for  Lumber,"  "Inedible  Fruits 
Which  May  Be  Transformed,"  "No  Two  Living 
Things  Exactly  Alike,"  etc. 

The  new  edition  also  has  a  Preface  by  David 
Starr  Jordan,  president  of  the  Leland  Stanford 
University  in  California,  in  which  he  remarks 
that  "big  men  are  usually  of  simple,  direct  sin- 
cerity of  character.  These  marks  are  found  in 
Burbank,  sweet,  straightforward,  unspoiled  as 
a  child,  devoted  to  truth,  never  turning  aside  to 
seek  fame  or  money  or  other  personal  reward. 
If  his  place  be  outside  the  great  temple  of 
science,  not  many  of  the  rest  of  us  will  be  found 
fit  to  enter." 

That  last  sentence  is  a  subtle  allusion  to  the 
fact  that  even  now  Luther  Burbank  has  enemies 
— enemies  who  lose  no  chance  to  belittle  and 
sneer  at  him.  I  referred  to  this  matter  in  the 


•3?  PASTIME   FOR   THE   RICH         259 

chapter  on  the  commercial  value  of  his  new 
creations,  but  I  wish  to  add  a  few  more  words. 
Let  me  first  cite  a  paragraph  from  my  Wagner 
and  His  Works: 

1  'Liszt's  enemies !  Does  it  not  seem  astounding 
that  one  should  have  to  write  down  those  two 
words?  Liszt,  the  most  generous,  big-hearted, 
unselfish  musician  that  ever  lived;  who  helped 
every  artist  in  distress;  who  taught  every  stu- 
dent without  charge;  who  delighted  tens  of 
thousands  with  such  interpretations  of  the 
masters  of  all  schools  as  no  one  had  ever  heard ; 
.  .  .  who  had  a  kind  word  for  everybody;  who 
was  generous  even  to  the  incompetent;  who 
wittingly  offended  no  one,  and  whose  tact  and 
amiability  are  evinced  in  all  his  sayings  and 
doings — Liszt  had  enemies?  Aye,  and  bitter 
ones;  enemies  who,  on  account  of  his  lofty 
artistic  ideals,  finally  succeeded  in  driving  him 
from  Weimar;  enemies  in  the  press,  enemies 
everywhere;  critical  enemies,  perhaps  more 
bitter  and  venomous  than  Wagner's." 

Darwin,  the  dear,  kind  man,  who  never 
harmed  man  or  beast  and  who  spent  his  life 
and  wrecked  his  health  in  the  pursuit  of  scien- 
tific truth,  had  as  bitter  and  persistent  enemies 
as  Liszt  and  Wagner.  There  are  professors 
even  now  who  speak  of  him,  as  they  do  of  his 
disciple  Burbank,  as  being  "discredited."  When 
my  friend  John  Fiske  came  to  the  rescue  of 
Darwin,  in  the  'seventies  of  the  last  century, 


260       GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         «i? 

Professor  Agassiz  said  of  him,  "That  man 
Shohn  Fiske  is  one  big  shackass."  I  myself 
wrote  many  articles  in  those  days  in  defense  of 
Darwinism,  the  main  truths  of  which  are  now 
acknowledged  by  all  scientific  authorities. 

In  the  Preface  just  alluded  to,  President 
Jordan  cites  an  interesting  paragraph  from  a 
speech  made  in  San  Francisco  by  the  great 
Dutch  botanist  of  the  University  of  Amster- 
dam, Dr.  Hugo  de  Vries,  regarding  Burbank: 
"A  unique,  great  genius!  To  see  him  was  the 
prime  reason  of  my  coming  to  America.  He 
works  to  definite  ends.  He  ought  to  be  not  only 
cherished,  but  helped.  Unaided  he  cannot  do 
his  best.  He  should  be  as  well  known  and  as 
widely  appreciated  in  California  as  among  scien- 
tific men  in  Europe." 

This  was  spoken  in  1904.  California  did 
learn,  some  years  later,  to  appreciate  and  honor 
Burbank.  The  Legislature  of  that  state  in 
1909  made  his  birthday,  the  7th  of  March, 
"Bird  and  Arbor  Day."  It  is  celebrated  by  the 
schools  throughout  the  state  by  tree  planting, 
exercises,  songs,  tableaux,  and  folk  dances. 
It  would  be  well  if  every  state  had  a  "Bird  and 
Arbor  Day"  in  honor  of  Burbank. 

THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   SPINELESS   CACTUS 

But  some  of  the  professors  continue  to  sneer 
at  him.  If  you  ask  them  why,  they  usually 
answer  vaguely  or  by  saying  that  he  "hasn't 


«  PASTIME  FOR  THE  RICH  261 

made  good  with  his  cactus,"  or  that  "he  created 
a  spineless  cactus  which  already  existed." 

Now  it  is  true  that  there  were  in  existence 
generations  ago  small  species  of  cactus  that 
were  spineless.  "One  of  the  first  pets  of  my 
childhood,"  Burbank  himself  relates,  "was  a 
thornless  cactus,  a  beautiful  little  plant  of  the 
genus  Epiphyllum.  There  are  also  members  of 
the  Cereus  family  that  are  thornless,  showing 
not  a  trace  of  spine  or  any  part  of  the  plant  or 
fruit. 

"But  the  cactus  plants  that  are  thus  unpro- 
vided with  spines  were  without  any  exception 
small  and  inconspicuous  species,  and  also  with 
a  bitter  principle  so  disagreeable  that  cattle 
generally  refused  to  eat  them.  So  the  plants 
offered  no  possibilities  of  direct  development 
through  selection  that  could  promise  the  produc- 
tion of  varieties  that  would  have  value  as  forage 
plants." 

The  problem  which  this  dauntless  plant 
breeder  undertook  to  solve  was  to  hybridize 
these  spineless  but  also  useless  varieties  of  cactus 
with  some  of  the  large  varieties,  particularly 
the  opuntias,  which  have  peculiarly  attractive 
qualities  of  size  and  succulence.  And  he  suc- 
ceeded in  achieving  this  miracle.  In  due  time 
such  a  new  race  was  developed  in  his  California 
gardens,  after  thousands  of  painstaking  experi- 
ments with  varieties  of  cactus  from  all  parts  of 
the  world,  sent  to  him  by  his  friend  David  G. 


262       GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         °2 

Fairchild,  the  government's  official  plant  im- 
porter, and  many  others. 

The  result  of  Burbank's  hybridizing  experi- 
ments, followed  up  and  supplemented  by  the 
usual  methods  of  rigid  selection,  was  "a  gigantic 
cactus,  overtopping  all  its  known  ancestors  in 
size,  and  surpassing  them  all  in  succulence  of 
flesh,  producing  fruit  of  unpredicted  excellence 
in  almost  unbelievable  quantity,  and  having  a 
surface  as  smooth  as  the  palm  of  your  hand.'* 

Not  a  single  one  of  the  opuntias  received  by 
him  from  any  source  was  altogether  without 
spines  and  spicules,  and  "no  such  variety  has 
yet  been  reported,  although  the  authorities  of 
the  Agricultural  Department  of  Washington 
scoured  the  earth  to  find  such  a  variety." 

In  some  of  the  South  Sea  Islands  there  are 
opuntias  with  soft,  hairlike  spines,  but  these  are 
too  tender  for  our  climate. 

"There  are  regions  in  Mexico  and  Hawaii," 
Burbank  further  relates,  "where  the  cattle  feed 
habitually  on  wild  species  of  opuntias,  even 
though  this  involves  the  habitual  ingestion  of 
millions  of  spines  and  spicules  with  which  the 
slabs  are  protected,  resulting  quite  often  in 
sickness  or  death  of  the  animals." 

Far  preferable — besides  being  hardy  in  our 
arid  regions  of  the  Southwest — are  the  Burbank 
hybrid  opuntias.  These  are  opuntias  "fulfilling 
every  specification  of  spineless  forage  plants  of 
reasonable  hardiness,  great  adaptability  as  to 


•K  PASTIME  FOR  THE  RICH        263 

soil  and  easy  culture,  and  enormous  produc- 
tivity; and  they  are  wonderful  fruit  producers 
as  well.  But  they  are  the  result  of  a  most  ardu- 
ous series  of  experiments  in  plant  development, 
and  they  constitute  new  races,  entitled  to  the 
rank  of  new  species  if  ordinary  botanical 
standards  are  to  be  accepted,  that  have  been 
developed  here,  and  that,  so  far  as  there  is  any 
evidence,  had  never  previously  existed  anywhere 
in  the  world." 

Nowhere  in  the  world  is  there  a  cactus  closely 
resembling  them  in  their  combination  of  entire 
spinelessness  and  inviting  forage  quality. 

Burbank's  thornless  cactus  is  at  present  used 
extensively  on  the  goat  farms  of  California  as 
well  as  on  the  dairy  farms.  It  supplies  both 
meat  and  drink  in  arid  regions.  It  is  also  used 
extensively  for  poultry,  and  many  large  poultry 
raisers  consider  it  not  only  the  cheapest,  but  the 
best,  of  all  green  feed  for  their  hens.  In  India 
the  Burbank  cactus  is  being  planted  for  the 
purpose  of  tiding  people  over  in  years  of  famine. 

If  Burbank  had  not  succeeded  in  his  attempt 
to  create  a  giant  thornless  cactus  he  would  have 
included  these  experiments  in  the  chapter  in 
which  he  frankly  enumerates  his  failures;  that's 
the  kind  of  a  man  he  is.  (Remember  what  I 
wrote  about  his  "$10,000  bonfires.")  Instead  of 
being  a  failure,  his  cactus  is  the  biggest  and 
most  wonderful  of  his  successes.  And  it  will 
remain  a  success.  Until  lately  there  was  a 


264      GARDENING  WITH  BRAINS         *» 

danger  of  reversion  to  the  spiny  condition  when 
the  improved  opuntias  were  planted  in  stony, 
arid,  desert  soil;  but  the  "more  recently  devel- 
oped varieties  of  spineless  opuntias  appear  to 
have  lost  altogether  under  all  circumstances  the 
capacity  to  revert  to  the  spineless  condition." 

The  cactus  is  a  funny  plant — unlike  all  others. 
If  you  put  a  joint  or  blossom,  bud,  or  half- 
grown  fruit,  almost  anywhere,  including  your 
pocket,  it  will  sprout — but  these  must  be 
wilted  before  they  grow!  From  a  single  slab 
you  may  produce  an  entire  field  of  spineless 
opuntias. 

Seeds,  therefore,  are  not  needed,  yet  Burbank 
has  spent  years  trying  to  raise  his  smooth- 
skinned  opuntias  from  seeds,  too.  Millions 
were  planted,  and  at  first  the  seedlings  did  not 
breed  at  all  true,  but  subsequent  sowing  resulted 
in  an  ever-increasing  proportion  of  spineless 
seedlings. 

At  the  same  time,  since  seeds  are  not  really 
necessary,  Burbank  has  been  busy  trying  to 
eliminate  them  from  his  "cactus  pears,"  as  he 
prefers  to  call  them  instead  of  "prickly  pears"; 
and  he  is  succeeding.  "The  improved  varieties 
have  seeds  not  larger  than  those  of  the  tomato, 
although  a  little  harder,  and  they  may  be 
swallowed  with  impunity."  In  later  experi- 
ments the  seeds  were  entirely  absent. 

To  these  cactus  pears  Burbank  attributes — 
and  for  abundant  reasons,  which  you  should 


°$  PASTIME  FOR  THE  RICH  265 

read  about  in  Vols.  V  and  VI  of  the  Collier  edi- 
tion— as  much  importance  for  the  future  nutri- 
tion of  mankind  as  he  does  to  the  cactus  slabs 
as  fodder  for  cattle,  horses,  hogs,  hens,  and  other 
animals. 

As  for  flavor,  he  tells  us  something  which  will 
arouse  the  attention  of  epicures  and  fruit  men: 
"On  my  grounds  the  choicest  varieties  of  fruits 
of  many  kinds  are  grown,  but  the  workmen 
usually  prefer  the  fruit  of  the  opuntias  to  any 
other  that  is  in  season  at  the  same  time." 

Will  not  some  relative  of  Hoover  come  along 
to  do  a  great  deed?  He  could  help  the  food 
world  enormously  by  making  the  Burbank  cactus 
pear  as  common  everywhere  as  the  orange  and 
the  banana.  It  contains  some  14  per  cent  sugar, 
and  is,  like  the  orange,  rich  in  some  of  those 
mineral  salts  (magnesia,  soda,  potash,  lime,  in 
assimilable  form)  which  recent  dietetic  research 
has  shown  to  be  the  most  valuable  of  all  food 
elements. 

Professor  Leotsakos  of  the  Greek  University 
of  Athens,  who  visited  Burbank  some  years  ago, 
informed  him  that  the  cactus  fruit  is  "a  very 
important  part  of  the  dietary  of  millions  of 
people  around  the  Mediterranean  for  about 
three  months  of  the  year.  He  declared  that  he 
himself  would  prefer  a  half  dozen  good  cactus 
fruits  for  breakfast  to  the  best  beefsteak." 

He  was  delighted  with  the  superior  quality 
and  productivity  of  the  Burbank  improved 


266       GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS         *$ 

varieties  and  assured  his  host  he  would  on  his 
return  to  Greece  make  haste  to  communicate 
with  the  government  officials,  that  they  might 
at  once  take  steps  to  plant  these  superior 
products  of  American  creative  genius,  one  of  the 
supreme  achievements  of  gardening  with  brains 
on  record. 


INDEX 


Annuals,  34-36,  49-54. 

Apples,  best,  228-231;    do  they 

keep  doctor  away?  232. 
Artichoke,  globe,  214. 
Asparagus,  growing,  80-89. 


Bailey,  Professor,  207,  247. 

Beans,  baby,  19;  Parisian,  136; 
stringless,  136. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  193. 

Beets,  sweetest,  21;   sugar,  21. 

Berries,  best  kinds  to  raise,  194; 
Burbank's  new,  212-214. 

Blackberries,  212. 

Brains,  i,  4,  chap,  vi,  87. 

Brazilian  forest  roof  gardens,  165. 

Bulbs,  38,  43  (hints  on  growing). 

Burbank,  Luther,  profitable  car- 
nations, iv;  flower  improve- 
ments, v;  seeds,  6;  peas,  20; 
nasturtiums,  24,  33;  tulips, 
40;  Harwood's  book  on,  40; 
breeding  for  perfumes,  40; 
fragrant  lilies,  46;  gladioli,  49; 
rainbow  corn,  53;  a  plunger, 
67;  intelligent  plants,  117; 
attacked  by  preacher,  121; 
tomatoes,  137;  potatoes,  137, 
197;  poppies,  142-149;  Shasta 
daisy,  167;  fragrant  plants, 
174;  sweet  peas,  175;  book 
on,  for  children,  180;  joys 
of  creating,  180;  strawber- 
ries, 191;  new  plums,  194, 
196;  sends  no  trees  East,  196; 
chapter  on  commercial  value 
of  new  creations,  197-218; 
work  in  1920,  200;  book  on, 
200;  saving  space,  time  and 
money,  202;  bonfires  and 


moral  character,  204;  enemies, 
205,  257;  plums  and  quinces, 
209;  prunes,  209;  cherries,  212; 
cactus,  216,  260;  makes  fruit 
more  digestible,  234;  on  pa- 
paws,  237-241;  directions  for 
improving  plants,  251;  better- 
ing Nature,  256;  new  edition  of 
literary  works,  257. 

Burpee,  W.  Atlee,  6,  23,  136, 
142,  153,  155,  174. 

Burroughs,  John,  191. 


Cabbage,  17. 

Cactus,  spineless,  260;  "pears," 
264. 

California,  poppy,  143;  sweet 
peas,  150;  climate,  200;  grapes, 
227;  honors  Burbank,  260. 

Calycanthus,  37. 

Carrots,  16,  21. 

Cats  and  dogs,  97. 

Cherries,  194,  212. 

Chickens,  100. 

Corn,  best  in  Maine,  3;  how 
loses  sweetness,  11;  best  way 
to  can,  12;  best  fertilizer  for, 
24;  raw  and  cooked,  26; 
saving  from  frost,  76;  how  to 
plant,  129;  hastening  growth, 
138;  Burbank's,  215. 

Cornflowers,  52. 

Country  Gentleman,  i,  11,  71, 
91,  226. 

Crows,  100. 

Cucumbers,  cooked,  16. 

Cultivating  the  soil,  55-58. 

Cutworms,  109. 


Darwin,  255,  259. 
Dew,  119. 


268      GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS 


Diseases  of  plants,  94. 
Doctors  and  fruit,  232. 
Dreer,  Henry  A.,  6,  41,  43,  142, 
145. 


Eckford,  Henry,  153. 
Elm  trees,  aggressive,  106. 
Eschscholtzia,  143. 


perfumes,  40;  grape  blossoms, 
91;  Riviera,  150;  violets  and 
pansies,  158;  soul  of  flowers, 
172-181. 

Frost,  what  makes  it  killing,  74. 

Fruits,  best  kinds  to  raise,  194; 
must  we  grow  our  own?  222; 
in  New  York,  227;  dietetic 
value  of,  232 ;  improved  trees, 
255. 


Fertilizers,  for  quick  start,  24; 
humus  and  other  plant  food, 
59,  67;  ashes,  63;  nitrates, 
64;  leafmold,  67;  best,  for 
different  plants,  68;  green 
manuring,  70;  for  hastening 
growth,  134;  for  pansies,  163. 

Flavor,  of  Maine  vegetables,  5; 
stimulates  digestive  glands, 
12;  of  fresh  tomatoes,  13; 
old  potatoes,  14;  of  steamed 
vegetables,  18;  baby  peas, 
20;  no  two  ears  of  corn  alike, 
26;  melons,  27;  asparagus, 
80;  strawberries,  192,  193; 
plums,  194,  210;  peaches, 
225;  apples,  230;  papaw,  238; 
enemies  of,  251;  grapes,  254. 

Fletcher,  Horace,  185. 

Flowers  (tee  names  of);  garden 
favorites,  30-54;  annuals,  34- 
36;  good  book  on,  35;  shrubs, 
36;  bulbs  and  perennials,  38- 
47;  succession,  39;  fragrant, 
50,  150,  158;  unscented,  50; 
mixed  beds,  51;  recent  im- 
provements in,  160;  fragrant 
soul  of,  172-181;  money 
value  of  improved,  217. 

Fog,  protecting,  76. 

Food  for  plants  (tee  Fertilizers). 

Fragrance,  should  decide  choice 
of  flowers,  36;  breeding  for 


Garden,  mania,  i;  cities,  9; 
work  made  easier  by  deep 
breathing,  47;  how  to  start  a, 
55-62;  tools,  55;  sowing 
seeds,  60;  thinning,  61;  guide 
book,  62;  using  the  feet,  65; 
be  a  gambler,  66;  frost  and 
fog,  74-79;  diseases,  94;  mira- 
cles in  the,  115-123;  roof  of 
gardens  in  Brazilian  forests, 
165;  wild-flower,  166;  as  life- 
saving  hobby  for  retired  rich, 
244;  creative  work,  247;  joys 
of  and  problems  to  solve,  251. 

Garlic,  214. 

Gladiolus,  48. 

Gophers,  111. 

Gourds,  53. 

Grapes,  and  prohibition,  222- 
227;  improvements,  254. 

Grasshoppers,  94. 

Greens,  value  of  as  food,  29,  72, 
183. 

H 

Harwood,  W.  S.,  book  on  Bur- 
bank,  200. 

Health  and  gardening,  ii. 
Henderson,  Peter,  6,  66. 
Hoe,  how  to  use,  25. 
Honeysuckle,  36. 
Humus,  67. 


INDEX 


269 


Insect  enemies,  89-97. 
Insect  friends,  98-105. 
Insurance  of  crops,  129. 
Intelligence  of  plants,  116-123, 

197. 

Intensive  gardening,  129. 
Iris,  47. 

J 

Japan,  147,  171,  195,  219. 
Johnson  grass,  78,  108. 


Keeney,  C.  N.,  136,  208,  247. 
Kellogg,  J.  H.,  241. 
Kerr,  G.  W.,  153. 
Kochia,  54. 


Ladybird,  93. 

Lettuce,    and    food    salts,    73; 

romaine,   152;    transplanting, 

130. 

Lilacs,  31,  36. 
Lilies,  39,  45. 
Lime,  62. 
Loganberries,  213. 

M 

McCann,  Alfred  W.,  72. 
Maine,  climate,  3. 
Manure  (tee  Fertilizers). 
Melons,  luscious,  26. 
Mineral  salts,  29,  72. 
Miracles  in  garden,  115-123. 
Mock  orange,  36. 
Moon  and  frost,  77. 
Morning-glories,  52,  219. 

N 

Nasturtiums,  31-34. 
Nicotiana,  fragrant,  181. 


Nitrate  of  soda  (tee  Fertilizers). 
Nosegays,  47. 


Orchard  improvement,  255. 

Oregon,  147. 

Ornamental  leaved  plants,  53. 


Pansies,  elm-tree  roots,  107; 
chapter  on,  158-164. 

Papaws,  chapter  on,  236-243. 

Peaches,  and  strong  drink,  222; 
book  on,  222;  worst  of  all, 
224. 

Pears,  putting  color  on,  252. 

Peas,  baby  and  wrinkled,  20; 
Senator,  20;  best  to  grow,  135. 

Peonies,  41-44,  171. 

Perennials,  38. 

Perfume  making,  179. 

Phlox,  43. 

Pigs  and  greens,  183. 

Plums,  195,  209. 

Poppies,  140-149,  188,  206. 

Potatoes,  deteriorate,  14;  bee- 
tles, 90;  how  to  get  big  yield, 
91;  spare  the  roots,  119; 
good  book  on,  119;  early,  137; 
story  of  Burbank's,  197;  dig- 
ging, 249. 

Powell,  E.  P.,  194,  221. 

Prohibition,  178;  and  the  fruit 
market,  222-227. 

Prunes,  Bur  bank,  210. 


Quince,  Burbank,  211. 


Radishes,  17. 
Rainbow  corn,  53. 
Rapid  transit  to  table,  9. 
Rhubarb,  214. 


270      GARDENING   WITH  BRAINS 


Romaine,  125. 
Roses,  37. 

S 

Salads,  increasing  demand  for, 
29. 

Salzer,  J.,  6. 

Santa  Rosa,  199. 

Schizanthus,  52. 

Scidmore,  E.  R.,  220. 

Seeds,  what  to  buy,  6;  cata- 
logues, 6;  government,  7. 

Seedsmen,  6. 

Shrubs,  flowering,  36. 

Smell,  sense  of,  176. 

Sorrel,  115. 

Sowing  seeds,  60. 

Spinach,  problem  solved,  21. 

Squashes,  16,  118,  124. 

Stark  Brothers,  196. 

Strawberries,  out  of  season,  12; 
educated,  189-194;  book  on, 
191. 

Sweet  peas,  diseases,  94;  chapter 
on,  150-157;  fragrance,  174. 

Swiss  chard,  102. 


Tacoma,  Mt.,  a*.  Rainier,  143. 

Thinning,  61,  148. 

Thomas,    Mrs.    Theodore,    148, 

167. 
Thorburn,  J.  M.,  6. 


Tomatoes,  and  climate,  8;  red 
but  not  ripe,  13;  "love  ap- 
ples," 30;  earliest  varieties, 
137. 

Tools,  for  garden,  55. 

Transplanting,  125-130. 

Tulips,  39. 


Vaughan,  6,  22,  23. 

Vegetables,  fresh,  10-14;  best, 
for  home  garden,  15-29;  baby, 
19;  good  book  on  raising,  23; 
best,  to  eat  raw,  25;  French 
book  on,  28;  French  cooks, 
28;  ornamental  kinds,  30; 
hastening  growth,  132-139. 

Vetch,  71. 

Vick,  James,  ii,  6,  46,  69. 

Violets,  158. 

Vitamines,  72. 

Vries,  Hugo  de,  199,  201,  260. 

W 

Walnut,  216. 
Watering,  57,  65. 
Weeds  and  weeding,  25,  26,  61, 

77,  115;    changed  to  flowers, 

166. 

Wheat,  improved,  201. 
Wistaria,  37. 
Witchgrass,  77,  108. 
Worms,  109. 


THE   END 


27651 


A     000676639     8 


